Shortage of Lind EMTs hits critical mark

The ambulance purchased with community donations to serve Lind will likely not leave its garage during the next several months. The Lind Ambulance Association is officially down to one Emergency Medical Technician who is willing or able to respond to medical emergencies.

As a result, EMTs and an ambulance from Ritzville or Washtucna will be sent to Lind in the event of an emergency.

For several months members of the Lind Ambulance Association, including president Rena Wahl and veteran EMT Jason Sanger have been actively trying to recruit community members to take the intensive EMT training course to help supplement the dwindling roster of EMTs.

They have been unsuccessful and during that same time the roster of available EMTs in Lind has dropped from five down to one as of Tuesday night.

A public meeting was held Tuesday in the Lind Senior Center to discuss the situation. The meeting was called to discuss the removal of Lind’s ambulance from the community. Initially citizens were angered by the notion, until Lind’s EMTs explained the critical need for more EMTs in order to be able to use the ambulance.

“We have been running with three to four (EMTs) until recently when I had to take my name off the roster because I have an ailing grandmother that I’m helping care for,” Wahl said. “Basically that left us with two running EMTs. That doesn’t work. That creates a real hardship on the two that are left to try and do it. It doesn’t function that way.

“We have put articles in the paper before when we were down to five EMTs. We put the article into the paper to say ‘we’re in trouble here, we need people to take a class.’ Nobody came to us,” Wahl continued. “We have tried to get the word out that this was coming. Our numbers have been dwindling. I’ve gone personally door-to-door to get people to try and take classes.

“As EMTs I feel we have been really working hard to get people to step up,” she said. “We are not able to get out and help our community in the way that it deserves to be helped. The answer to all of this in my opinion is more people.”

Adams County Public Hospital District No. 2’s Emergency Medical Services Coordinator Ronni Kinney said the Lind EMTs asked for the ambulance to be removed.

“We are thinking we will remove it up to Ritzville until we can get enough people to operate it,” Kinney said. “We will leave jump kits. That way they have everything necessary to respond in town.”

Chief Executive Officer Mark Barglof said the situation has been escalating as the Lind roster of EMTs shrank. In November, Kinney was asked to attend an ambulance association meeting.

“The Lind EMS association called Ronni and said ‘we don’t have enough EMTs in Lind, we’re getting pressure from our community to respond to calls and we can’t get out, we don’t have crews, would you please help us.’ One of those solutions is removing the ambulance. The impression of an ambulance being here is that it should be out,” Barglof said.

Barglof said using jump kits will make it possible for Lind EMTs to respond, when they can, to a medical emergency within the town.

“The short-term solution is jump kits. It’s not ideal,” Barglof said. “They are not as fully equipped obviously as an ambulance is. But it would allow Jason and PJ (Jacobsen) and maybe some others to be able to respond to a call, grab their jump bag and get to a site and at least start treating a patient before either the Washtucna or Ritzville ambulance could respond.”

Sanger said Tuesday that he needs to take a break, and for now, will not be responding to calls. Mike Doyle, who also attended the meeting, has served for 20 years. He just recently retired.

The meeting continued for about an hour as residents asked what is required of EMTs and who pays for the training?

Kinney explained that the EMT course takes 160 hours to complete. Students also have to pass rigorous testing in order to become nationally certified.

The cost for the class ranges from $300 to up to $550.

The cost for the class can be paid for a number of ways. Kinney said the hospital district currently requires students to pay for the tuition up front. Then, after they have completed the class and become certified, the district will reimburse them following six months of service as an EMT.

In the past the hospital district paid the tuition up front and then students often dropped out and didn’t complete the class, resulting in a loss of taxpayer funds.

Some scholarships are available.

As a result of the discussion, six residents signed up to take the EMT class and a seventh signed up for the Emergency Medical Responder course which is for ambulance drivers.

Wahl said the Lind Ambulance Association would contact them and ask them to attend a meeting in January to determine how many will actually go forward and take the class.

Ultimately the community should have a minimum of eight to 10 active EMTs.