Ambulance needs council's support

Editor,

The golden hour is the time during which treatment of shock or traumatic injuries is most critical and survival is the potential best. After 60 minutes, the body has increasing difficulty in compensating for traumatic injuries.

I have been a volunteer with the Ronan Ambulance for three years. It gives me great pride to serve my community in such a way.

We as volunteers spend countless hours away from our families and our jobs to provide such a service to Ronan, Pablo and Charlo areas.

The number of 911 calls in these areas has increased to the point that we are losing calls to surrounding services, which in turn makes response time twice as long.

Those few minutes are the difference between life and death in many situations.

We have proposed to the city council twice about the hiring of one or two full-time employees and both times have been turned down.

In response to the Mayor's quote "we don't make a dime off it," to my knowledge the only money we receive from the city is the money that is received from the taxpayers, and after that all the money that is used to support the ambulance service is the money that is raised by the service from responding to calls. We as volunteers make the money to pay the bills.

Here are some data for those of you that want numbers. These for the most part are accurate but some calls have been assigned to other services or to the officers that have responded.

From January 1, 2005, to present we have responded to 32 traffic accidents with injury, four traffic accidents that were fatal, and around 700 other 911 calls ranging from assaults to medical emergencies.

From Jan. 1, 2005, to July 17, 2005, we lost 83 transports to other services.

That is about 736 911 calls to date compared to 658 calls last year that were assigned to us and the year isn't over yet.

There are about 22 members on the service that work full-time jobs, have families and still manage to make as many calls as possible to better serve their community.

I am proud to say that myself along with many others on the service that have each responded to over 180 calls. To me that is dedication to service that we want to see succeed and profit in our community, but without the support of the city council we don't have a chance to make that happen.

At this time I would like to take a moment and thank my fellow volunteers — you all deserve a big pat on the back for a job well done.

I also thank the Ronan Volunteer Fire Department. They have also responded to all of the traffic accidents that we have responded to and they also assist on any other call that we respond to if they are needed. Thank you, you all deserve a pat on your back and I feel privileged and honored to work side by side with such a great service, you are the best.

Stacy Palmer

Ronan Ambulance Volunteer

Ronan