By Jennifer Latson
Daily Press
Copyright 2007 Daily Press, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Local fire departments are having trouble filling openings for emergency medical staff.
With a screech of tires and a sickening thud, Kristina St. Pere’s day off turned into a day on.
St. Pere, a paramedic with the Newport News Fire Department, was doing some spring cleaning at her Poquoson home earlier this month and had just stepped onto her porch to take a break when she heard the crash.
“After you’ve been doing what I’ve been doing for a while, you recognize that sound of an automobile hitting something,” the 42-year-old fire department captain said.
St. Pere ran barefoot into the road and saw a child’s bicycle under the wheels of a pickup truck. She and her 16-year-old son raced down the road.
The pickup truck driver was already gone when she reached the little girl who had been knocked off her bike.
St. Pere’s son held the girl’s head steady to protect her in case of an unseen spinal injury while his mother checked her breathing and prepared her for an ambulance ride.
Fortunately, the 9-year-old girl was not seriously injured. She had no permanent spine damage and she suffered no internal bleeding, St. Pere said.
But in her split-second response, the paramedic was prepared for the worst.
“Really, it’s just kind of built into you,” she said. “When you see something like that, you just have to go into rescue mode.”
There’s a growing demand for medical workers like St. Pere in Hampton Roads, and local fire departments are all vying for the same limited number of applicants.
That means fire departments are having trouble filling openings for emergency medical staff.
In Newport News, where all hires are trained to work both as firefighters and as medics, recruiters say they’ve seen the number of applicants decline by more than half in recent years.
“Five or six years ago, we’d have as many as 600 applicants,” said Assistant Chief Pat Dent, who’s in charge of training and recruiting for the Newport News Fire Department.
This year, only 250 people showed up to take a qualifying test to join the department, Dent said. And many of those people are also applying to neighboring fire departments.
Fire recruiters in Newport News are attending twice as many job fairs as they used to, and they’re working to attract more mid-career professionals, such as retired military personnel. But they haven’t had much success, Dent said.
The most recent class of EMS trainees joining the Newport News department was smaller than usual. Twelve people enrolled in the class, but only seven completed it. One of the new recruits had a career as a musician before the theater where he worked closed down and he applied to the fire department. Dan Perry, 40, worked his first 24-hour shift with the department on Wednesday.
“It’s a pretty cool career if you can make it in,” Perry said. “It’s a 180-degree change for me. It’s pretty exciting.”
In Newport News, the recruiting problem is partly the result of a wave of retirements over the past few years that has left 43 positions currently vacant on the 377-member fire department.
In all fire departments, though, one reason for the growing demand for medics is that formerly volunteer departments have started hiring professional EMS workers, who must meet increasingly high standards to qualify for the jobs.
In James City County, District Chief Buster Canaday is trying to recruit three new firefighter-medics to round out the staff of just over 100.
“In the late ‘80s, early ‘90s, we’d have 300 people apply for one position. Now it’s more like 80 or 90,” Canaday said. “We have some pretty stringent requirements, so not everyone can get the job with us. We’re trying to fill those slots with capable people.”
Emergency medical technicians and paramedics work 24-hour shifts helping in medical emergencies as varied as heart attacks, car accidents, shootings and suicide attempts. And as St. Pere has found in more than 25 years on the job, there’s really no such thing as “off duty.”
The job is taxing, but for those with a calling, it’s worth it, St. Pere said. She launched her career at the age of 15, when she joined the junior squad of a volunteer rescue service.
Her teenage son sees a fair share of traffic accidents up close when his mother pulls over to help. He’s always willing to lend a hand, she said, but the job doesn’t appeal to him. He wants to be an engineer instead -- designing cars. *
Difference between an EMT and a paramedic?
There are three levels of certification for emergency medical technicians - EMTs - in Virginia.
EMT-Basics are trained to assess a patient’s condition, manage respiratory, cardiac and trauma emergencies, and transport a victim to the hospital by ambulance.
EMT-Intermediates can also administer intravenous fluids, use manual defibrillators to restart a stopped heart, and use advanced airway techniques and equipment to help patients breathe. Most local fire departments require staff to be trained as EMT-intermediates.
Paramedics have the highest level of EMT training. They can give patients oral and intravenous drugs, read electrocardiograms, induce artificial respiration, and use monitors and other complex equipment.