|
||||
  
 
 |
'Personal pride' fuels excellence of Lewiston's volunteer emergency team By
Aaron Morton
It's hard to say if Lewiston has the best First Responders/EMT units in Cache Valley. First Responders President Rod Hammer would like to think so. The 18-member unit has the reputation of one of the best because of the dedication of the volunteers, Mayor Russell Hirst said. "It is a lot of personal pride," Hammer said. It takes 60 hours to become a certified first responder and 140 hours to become an EMT, with 25 hours each year to keep up to speed, Hammer said. And that's not counting the city's monthly drills and the yearly recertification test. So how can a such a small town -- Lewiston's web site projects a population of 1,620 in 2000 --have such a good squad? "It's the type of the town," full-time city employee and first responder Alan Smith said. "We're a generation from the past," Hirst said. The City Council gives the first responders/emergency medical technichians (EMTs) a lot of support, Hammer said. All the training is paid for by the city and there is a good turnout at the monthly training meetings. "I know we have a good group," Smith said. Smith is one of three members of the squad that are not volunteers, it is part of his job description as a city employee. Mark Blair and Jake Johnson are also city employee who trade off on doing the day shift, a 12-hour shift where they are in charge of getting people to the scene. When an a 911 emergency call is sent to Logan, it is dispatched to the ambulance and all the responders are paged. All of Lewiston's responders live in the city or nearby Cornish or Cove, which are also in the responders' area. The squad has never had a problem not getting anybody out on a call, Smith said. An ambulance (formally owned by Rich County) carries the equipment needed from the city's Fire Station to where they are needed. The squad then stabilizes the patient and waits for the County ambulance to arrive. Lewiston isn't certified to transport patients. There is a "golden hour" from when the accident occurs to getting them to the hospital, Hammer said, that is the most important in saving lives. When the county ambulance arrives, they rarely have to ask what has and hasn't been done because of the unit's quality, Hammer said. "They've got some confidence in us," he said. The squad responds to just under a call a week. They can come at anytime in the day or night - 30 to 50 percent of those are car accidents. Has there been a more important call? "Every call feels that way," Hammer said. Smith said the calls come in spurts, sometimes they can get two or three calls a day, while other times there can be a dry spell. Recently, it has been slow, they haven't gotten a call in the past two weeks. Like the three city employees, many first responders are also volunteer fire fighters. That doubles the training time, Hammer said. So why go through all the stress and used free time just volunteering? It's more the satisfaction of helping somebody, Smith said. "They want to give something back," he said of the volunteers. The first responders/EMTs do get jackets and shirts to give them an identity and sense of pride, Smith added.
|
Archived Months:
January
1999 January
2000 |
||