By Victoria Lusk
The American News
ABERDEEN, S.D. — Rural communities struggle with finding enough trained volunteers to maintain emergency services.
Frederick Ambulance Service certainly learned that lesson when it voluntarily gave up its license in January 2014.
State law dictates that in order to keep a licensed ambulance service that is able to transport patients, at least one certified emergency medical technician and driver must be available 24 hours a day every day of the year.
That’s not something Frederick’s volunteers – or lack thereof at the time – could guarantee. And maintaining the license could have opened the service to a lawsuit.
Without the license, first responders could still go to accidents or emergency calls. They would provide first aid and basic life support until an ambulance with Aberdeen paramedics arrived. The loss of the license simply meant that no matter what, Frederick volunteers could not transport a patient.
“There were times it wouldcommunity members have been working to re-establish a volunteer base that has since allowed the ambulance service to regain its license’ve been better to transport than wait,” David Losure, director of the Frederick ambulance service, said.
Knowing that, several .
“They stepped up and got the training done and went back to the state to reapply,” said Scott Meints, Brown County Emergency Management director.
That training was led by Frederick High School alum Cole Adema, who moved back to town in fall 2013.
“It’s home,” he said.
Plus, that’s when things were “bare-boned” in Frederick. The ambulance service was down to only one certified emergency management technician, he said.
“That was a big part of the decision to move back and take on the responsibility,” Adema said. “There was really no other way to bring the education and experience that I had at that point. The biggest factor was that Frederick needed someone.”
Adema said he has been involved with emergency services of some kind of another since he was 13 years old, including as a Frederick volunteer fireman and with the Brown County rescue and dive team. He went to Lake Area Technical Institute for its medical and fire rescue program. He’s previously worked with the Mobridge ambulance service.
Once back home, he spent the next few years working different paying jobs – helping area farmers or contractors and working for Sanford Aberdeen – while taking on the title of volunteer director of Frederick’s ambulance program.
In that role, he and others reorganized and worked to ensure the ambulance was up to specifications and properly supplied. He then began to advertise emergency medical technician classes to see if there was any interest.
There was.
Becoming a certified emergency medical technician isn’t easy, Adema said. It requires 180 volunteer hours in what he calls fairly intensive classes. Some of those hours are spent in an emergency room, others with Aberdeen Fire and Rescue. Six people attended the four-hour classes two or three times a week. All of the volunteers passed the class and required testing on their first try.
A second class followed in conjunction with volunteers in Ellendale, N.D. Once those emergency medical technicians were certified, staffing was to the point where it was more reasonable to have at least one technician and a driver available at all times, Adema said.
“We decided it was a reasonable risk to get the license back,” Losure said.
Adema has since accepted a paramedic position in Reno, Nev. But he knows the Frederick ambulance program was left in good hands.
“You need to get everything set up so that if you disappear some day, it can still function,” Adema said. “I’m proud of everyone there.
“Almost every service in South Dakota is facing the same things. It’s going to take some really dedicated volunteers to keep these services,” he said.
Copyright 2016 the American News