Salisbury Volunteer Ambulance: Neighbors helping neighbors

SALISBURY —In the past eight weeks the Salisbury Volunteer Ambulance Service (SVAS) has been called into action for two life-and-death emergencies. Both were covered in the pages of local newspapers — but much of the work the squad does never makes the news, and many people in town don’t know much about the men and women volunteers who keep them safe.

Members of the all-volunteer squad are on call 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. SVAS is dispatched for everything from lift assists (helping a person who has fallen and can’t get up but is not injured) to critical care situations where the LifeStar helicopter may be called in to transport a patient to another facility. Whatever the call, a team of two or more EMTs (Emergency Medical Technicians) will arrive on the scene in an ambulance ready to assist.

EMT class begins Aug. 27

On Thursday, Aug. 27, Jacquie Rice, chief of service for SVAS, will begin teaching a new EMT-B and Refresher course at ambulance headquarters, which is across the road from The White Hart Inn. The course runs from Aug. 27, 2009, to March 25, 2010, meeting once a week on Thursday evenings for four hours. It is open to anyone in the community interested in becoming an EMT, including residents of all nearby towns in the Tri-state area.

In the past year, SVAS has responded to more than 450 calls. Nearly 30 percent of those calls involved residents of Noble Horizons. On average there are three or four motor vehicle crash calls a month, but falls and difficulty breathing cases account for the most frequently dispatched incidents.

As an all-volunteer service, squad members live in Salisbury/Lakeville and often find themselves assisting their friends or neighbors. Kaki Schafer-Reid, assistant chief of SVAS put it this way: “I’ve been on calls where I knew the people involved and someone will come up to me later and say, ‘It really helped me, seeing you.’ It calms people down, in stressful situations, to see a friendly face.�

Schafer-Reid has been a squad member for more than 10 years. She started as a driver but was encouraged to take the EMT class.

“I walked into the class and said to Jacquie (Rice), ‘I was told to take the class to see what everybody does while I’m driving. And I can’t handle blood.’ Jacquie laughed and said I should just participate [as much as I could].�

Schafer-Reid discovered after she successfully completed the training and was on the squad for a while that, “As you go on more calls, the training just takes over. Even when it’s really difficult, it brings you back around.

“And you feel good about yourself. There’s teamwork and camaraderie that kicks in and helps you through the bad things and afterward there are opportunities to talk about it. We all help each other get through.�

Using vans as ambulances

When Rees Harris started the Salisbury Volunteer Ambulance Service back in 1971, there were 14 members and the first ambulance was a converted Dodge van.

Over the years the equipment has become more sophisticated and customized. Michael Brenner, rescue chief (and longest-serving member, along with Rice, who joined when she was 18 years old) said, “Back then the vehicles were often Cadillacs and Pontiacs ; some squads had hearses that came from funeral homes.�

The dispatch system has changed as well.

“It used to be the call came into The White Hart and the operator there would call whichever EMT was on duty and then that person would go to the house of the other EMTs and beep the horn for them. Now we all have pagers and radios.�

A high turn-over rate

SVAS got its first modular ambulance in 1978. In the 38 years the squad has been serving the community, it’s had seven or eight ambulances. The average life of an ambulance is approximately 15 years, according to Brenner, which is longer than the average term of most volunteers.

Brenner estimates that there have been more than 1,000  people from the community who have served as EMTs or drivers in the history of the squad.

“The average stay time is five years,� he said. “Ten years is outstanding and at 15, it’s time to have a party.�

Brenner described the average volunteer as, well, not average.

“We get people from all walks of life here: business people, housewives, teachers, blue-collar workers, doctors and nurses. It takes a unique person to do what we do — but it also takes special families. The individuals give up their time and the families give up the individual. You can’t do it without a good support system.�

That makes squad members like Deb and Bob Fails most unusual. They joined the squad together, 13 years ago. Bob said, “We used to see Jared [Dr. Zelman, SVAS squad member and former head of the Sharon Hospital emergency room] a lot and he was always encouraging us to join. Then one day, we were at the Grove and our son went unconscious and we called for help. While we waited I was able to keep his airway open – but it was really scary and we (Deb and I) decided we needed to know more — and we decided to take the class. Our kids were little, 7, 9 and 11, so it was really tough.�

One requirement of the EMT class is to do 10 hours of training in the emergency room. Fails was drawn to the work and stayed on as a volunteer. It wasn’t long before they hired him and he embarked on a new career.

Schafer-Reid pointed out that has happened to a number of squad members; several EMTs work in the ER, some have gone on to nursing school, or become paramedics. She now works at Litchfield County Dispatch, the region’s 911 service. (This reporter is also an EMT-B, having joined SVAS four years ago.)

Currently, 42 licensed EMTs and eight drivers make-up the SVAS squad. New members are sought and needed.

The EMT-B and refresher course are good ways to learn about what the ambulance volunteers do. The classes are Thursdays from Aug. 27 to March 25, 6:30 to 10 p.m.  The cost is $300 for the initial EMT-B certification. Call 860-435-9866 for information or to sign up.