Buffalo County (WQOW)- During a fire or any other emergency, every second counts. No one knows that better than EMS workers, who are many times the first on scene.
In an area county, we're learning that there is a severe shortage of EMS workers and it could affect how emergency response.
"The rural area is unique," says Carol Burmeister with Scenic Valley Emergency Medical Services. "We require a five-minute response time here to the garage."
Scenic Valley is looking for volunteers. But that can be tricky when you live in a rural area, where most of the jobs are located outside of town.
Scenic Valley says it's having trouble bringing in new talent to the area. It used to have 11 EMS workers, but three have recently left, bringing the current total to only eight. In order not to disband the service, those numbers need to come up.
"The protocol for our service calls for two EMT's and one driver to respond to each scene," explains Carson Lentz, who works as an ambulance driver for Scenic Valley.
Drivers aren't in much better supply. Currently, there are only four. Which means everyone who works at Scenic Valley is on call 25 percent of the time.
"If someone takes a vacation, like I leave for a month in the winter usually and so then everybody else has to pick up the extra slack," Lentz points out.
If things don't get better, the possibility of stopping the service altogether becomes more realistic. And if that were to happen, the area would need to rely on others in an emergency.
"If we were to disband, typically we would probably expect our service to be coming from Winona, which is approximately 20 minutes from here. And in a rural area, it could be up to 40 minutes," Burmeister calculates. "So your delay time is going to be quite extensive."
So Scenic Valley is on the recruiting trail looking for 8 more workers.
"We placed ads in the paper. We are going to be going door-to-door," Burmeister reveals. "We are just asking the public to consider joining our service for the betterment of our community."
To become an EMT, you need to go through 144 hours of training. All positions are on a volunteer basis. If you are interested in volunteering, you can contact (608) 248-3727 or (608) 248-2603.
