Many EMS providers find their work to be a calling - long hours, low pay, and hours of monotony and the mundane, punctuated by minutes of exhilaration and occasional terror.
And, most of us wouldn’t trade it for anything else in the world.
But how many of us would sink half a million dollars of our own money into providing the service? This couple did exactly that - and from what I can tell, did it for all of the right reasons.
In this rural part of North Dakota, they’ll never make enough money to cover the cost of running the service. Their providers commute from many hours away. The building, garage and equipment are donations from local businesses. Not exactly the recipe for long-term financial success.
But what they lack in resources is more than made up by a sense of obligation and duty. They did it because they felt they had to. And it looks like they did their research, determining that there was a need for the service to exist. The EMS motto of ‘Adapt and Overcome’ is in full play here.
It’s a “Field of Dreams,” approach – ‘build it, and they will come.’ In this case, it might be a combination of donations, an innovative funding stream, financial support from local companies, and dedicated, well-trained personnel that will get to serve in this community.
Cinderella story? Perhaps. But I am rooting for their success.
