Hurleyville disbands ambulance corp

[INIT915 1,119]

Hurleyville disbands ambulance corp

By Michal Lumsden

Times Herald-Record

December 19, 2007

Hurleyville — The Hurleyville fire district commissioners have voted to temporarily disband the hamlet's Emergency Relief Squad as of midnight, New Year's Eve. At that point MobileMedic Emergency Medical Services will take over.

"It's a very emotional decision for everyone involved," said Jim Sullivan, acting chairman of Hurleyville's fire district.

After about two years pondering the fate of the volunteer ambulance unit, the five-member board of commissioners finally agreed that tougher medical regulations are making it too difficult to maintain an appropriately trained corps.

The squad was started in the late 1960s for local residents who couldn't afford to pay up-front for an ambulance ride to the hospital.

A certified EMT is now required to be present for every trip. Because of increased training hours and requirements, Sullivan said, it has been difficult to recruit certified EMTs. Hurleyville currently has just three.

"A lot of times it's just a taxi ride to the hospital, but you can't do that because there's not an EMT," Sullivan said.

The board of commissioners will re-evaluate the relief squad's service on April 1, 2008.

[nycemt728 49]

What state is this? From the article, it sounds like they were operating w/o an EMT until the law changed...anyone have any further info or care to elaborate? It seems a little odd to operate an ambualnce on a CFR level. Shame that they got disbanded, w/e the reason!

[EJS1810 7]

I would say either Orange or Sulivan

[Goose 188]

I think EJS is in the right area, mobilemedic is definitely a New York Company.

[Medibart 55]

Hurleyville is part of the Town of Fallsburg in Sullivan County. There used to be six ambulance corps in the town, Hurleyville being one of them. Loch Sheldrake, Fallsburg and Woodridge all previously folded and now Hurleyville. Mountaindale and Woodbourne are still left. I used to work Mobile Medic and quite frankly, it never made sense to me to have six very small agencies, some of which were doing fewer than 100 calls a year, rather than 1 stronger townwide entity.

I think consolidation and regionalization is the answer for some smaller ambulance corps. I remember there being nice people in Hurleyville, so hopefully they can get their act back together.

[NYMedic37 22]

If the volunteer corps can only muster 3 EMT's for its entire membership, they should disband for the sake of patient care and let a career service take over.

[Guest alsfirefighter]

Always sad to see this happen, but things are what they are and its better not to try to hold on and jeopardize public safety.

agreed that tougher medical regulations are making it too difficult to maintain an appropriately trained corps.

Can someone please explain to me what exactly this is suppose to mean? I just don't see it this way. But it seems to be a recurring theme in these situations. Adapt your training to what your members need I say. Do not lessen requirements, that isn't an option and will only further push NY into slower implementation of skills and med administration then it already is and put us farther behind other progressive areas of the country.

[trauma74 111]

This is the 2nd VAC in the Orange/Sullivan County area to close within 2 days. This is a very sad situation. If a VAC doesnt have enough volunteers, they need to hire paid EMTs like many of the other VACs in the area have done. Letting a commercial service in to completely cover any town is not a good thing.

[LTNRFD 266]

Always sad to see this happen, but things are what they are and its better not to try to hold on and jeopardize public safety.

Can someone please explain to me what exactly this is suppose to mean? I just don't see it this way. But it seems to be a recurring theme in these situations. Adapt your training to what your members need I say. Do not lessen requirements, that isn't an option and will only further push NY into slower implementation of skills and med administration then it already is and put us farther behind other progressive areas of the country.

Years ago, all you needed to run an ambulance service, be it a Volunteer or Commercial was ARC advanced first aid. Some of the "older" VACs had their start way back when. There are still members that have the mind set that 'we did the job back then with little or no training, we should still be able to do it now'.

These are the people that make theses type of statements, as highlighted above. For the most part they are right. They can provide 'a level' of care. The problem is they either don't know that the standards have been raised or they don't think it is needed (a higher level of care).

A lot of people that post in EMTBravo are too young to know how is was back when. Compare today with 30 years ago and your would get a headache from shaking your head in disbelief. We used to use sandbags and soft neck collars to immobilize neck injuries and NO tape. It was not uncommon to place 4, yes 4 critical trauma patients, all on stretchers, in 1 ambulance. Has anyone ever seen a hearse with a red light on top of it. If you saw it going to the hospital with the red light on and all of sudden the light was turned off, well you can figure out what happened to the patient.

It is a real shame that a lot of the older ambulance corps are closing up. Just remember if it wasn't for the vollies, many people would not have gotten their start in EMS. Remember where you came from. Also, many of the changes in EMS evolved from these "old timers".

I am in no way saying that we should step backwards. I strongly believe that EMS MUST continue to raise the standard. The first EMT classes where 40 hours and had no standard curriculum. The first Medic classes where AEMT-3 consisting of 300 hours of class room and clinical. The old timers started things off and as new people came into the field they brought with them questions and got answers, the evolution began.

I am also a strong believer that Volunteers can provide a high level of service in both EMS and Fire. I am also a strong believer that when the Volunteers can't provide the level of service that is the standard, then it is time to replace them. These positions, fire or EMS should be full time municipal career.

[NYMedic37 22]

This is the 2nd VAC in the Orange/Sullivan County area to close within 2 days. This is a very sad situation. If a VAC doesnt have enough volunteers, they need to hire paid EMTs like many of the other VACs in the area have done. Letting a commercial service in to completely cover any town is not a good thing.

Its really not a volunteer ambulance corps if almost all of your EMT's are paid.

[trauma74 111]

LTNRFD,

AMEN BROTHER!!!!!!!! I have been a dedicated EMS volunteer for close to 15 years now and I was around when advanced first aiders and CFRs were the manning the buses. Shortly after I joined my VAC was working on getting "NYS Certified" and putting those "NYS CERTIFIED" decals on our buses. I remember when the NYS DOH didnt pay for the EMT classes for the members of VACs. The VAC had to pay the money for their members to attend EMT Class.

Things were kind of backwards in the old days, but nobody should ever forget that if it was not for the older timers, their VACs would not exist they way they do today.

[GAW6 66]

Ditto LTNRD -

You are absolutely right. So many of the career EMTs and Paramedics started out in vollie corps and then forget where they came from. With 20 years of VAC service, I have seen many come in with no training and leave as excellent EMTs and Medics - the problem is, many forget their ROOTS!

[NJMedic 96]

Letting a commercial service in to completely cover any town is not a good thing.

Why is that? Is it better to have a career EMS provider covering 100% of the EMS jobs or a volunteer unit that only has three EMTs? I give Hurleysville credit at least they recognized the problem, albiet a little late. I have towns around me that daily hand over EMS assignments. And these are small towns, forty to fifty thousand people size towns with EMS volume approaching 1200 to 1500 incidents a year if not greater. I don't think I'm any volunteer. Here in NJ there are absolutely no regulations for volunteer EMS agencies. There are many stand up organizations who regulate themselves much better then some of the career agencies but there are a significant number of them that do what ever the want. To get a good handle on NJ's problems check this out: http://www.state.nj.us/health/ems/document...tudy_report.pdf

[Medibart 55]

This is the 2nd VAC in the Orange/Sullivan County area to close within 2 days. This is a very sad situation. If a VAC doesnt have enough volunteers, they need to hire paid EMTs like many of the other VACs in the area have done. Letting a commercial service in to completely cover any town is not a good thing.

Was this the other one you were speaking of?

Ambulance corps shutdown leaves residents anxious

By Simon Shifrin

Times Herald-Record

December 20, 2007

Otisville — Otisville and Mount Hope residents face stark options in coming months with the shutdown this week of their volunteer ambulance corps.

Regional EMS of Middletown, a nonprofit, has taken over as the primary life support provider in the town and village for the time being.

But under the current arrangement, Regional's response times in the area can range from five to 25 minutes depending on the weather, the location of ambulances and the location of the call, said Mike Witkowski, Regional's Orange County chief of operations, speaking at a brainstorming meeting last night at Mount Hope Town Hall.

Rescuers talk about the "golden hour," he said, where a trauma victim has about an hour to get to the hospital to have the best chance of survival.

"What you're doing right now is basically playing Russian roulette," he said. "What's best for this town is to guarantee subsidized service, guarantee your residents an ambulance response."

That would mean that the town and village would hire Regional, or another EMS company, to staff a full-time ambulance in the town. That could cost taxpayers more than $300,000 or about $200 per year per $100,000 of assessed property value, officials estimated last night.

Before this week's shutdown of the volunteer ambulance corps, Regional had already become the de facto life support provider in the area.

With its eight volunteers, the local corps had only been staffing one 12-hour shift per week.

In the late 1990s, the corps had a full crew of 20-30 volunteers who would respond to calls 24 hours every day, said Capt. Dan Dodd.

But demands have grown on EMTs in recent years, with certification requirements and the time spent on calls. And the corps was operating on a shoestring budget of $33,000 per year.

Since 1983, the corps operated out of a closet in the cramped Otisville firehouse, which also maintains a bay for one ambulance.

With no crew quarters, volunteers had to respond to calls from home.

And just to use the bathroom at the firehouse, they had to have a special key.

Dodd said it's a "miracle" the corps survived as long as it did.

"It's hard to run your business out of somebody else's closet," he said.

sshifrin@th-record.com

[trauma74 111]

Mount Hope-Otisville VAC in Orange County and Hurleyville VAC in Sullivan County.