Privatize Ronan Ambulance Service

Editor,

On Jan. 5 my mother called the Ronan ambulance about 11:30 a.m. because I had fallen. Since I have two metal hips, a fall is quite serious.

The ambulance arrived with Mike Cullen, driver, and Patty Seich and Justin Bartels as riders. They immediately assessed the situation and knew that I had probably dislocated my artificial hip. They left the blankets I was laying on under me and wrapped a couple sheets around my hips so they wouldn't move. They talked to me the entire time and had me in the ambulance in just a couple minutes and we were on our way to the hospital.

It was a fabulous idea about the sheets around the hips. This caused them not to move, especially with the roads out at Valley View and all the bumps. I was in relative comfort and Patty and Justin talked to me the entire time. They informed me of what they were doing and why. The professionalism and speed of the three was wonderful.

The only complaint that I had is that it took so long for them to get out to me. It took almost 25 minutes. The drive time was only 13 minutes. I was laying in the cold, wet mud and snow when my Mom called 911, and I was not able to be moved. I did roll off my stomach and onto my back at the cost of quite considerable pain, so I was on a blanket we keep in the car.

If the Ronan ambulance were privately operated there would have been someone there and they could have reached my house about 10 minutes earlier. When you are laying in the mud and snow, 10 minutes is a lot of time. I had a temperature of 96 degrees when the ambulance crew loaded me into the vehicle.

If it had been raining or snowing, I could have already been suffering pre-hypothermia (at about 94 degrees). It doesn't take much for your body temperature to drop when you've had an accident, suffering from shock and are outside in the element. I am greatly thankful that the crew knew to put me in blankets and turn the heat up immediately to raise my temperature.

I have used the Ronan Ambulance Service in June 2005 when I suffered from a third degree heart block. At that time Patty Seich and Stacey Palmer were in attendance. The response was much quicker because they were in a class at the ambulance garage. Lucky that they were because I only had a heart rate of 10. Had they not been in class and that close to the ambulance, I may not have survived.

I would support any measure necessary to privatize the Ronan Ambulance Service and I hope that you would, too.

In privatizing it would mean that a crew would be at the station 24 hours a day and be ready and waiting instead of being at work or at home and wasting 10-15 minutes just getting to the ambulance garage. It would allow the crew to reach patients sooner and that could mean the difference between life and death — maybe even mine or yours.

Marie McCabe

Valley View, Ronan