Founded in August of 1974, the Warren County Ambulance District's paramedics have been responding to 911 calls and saving lives in Warren County for 50 years.
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Founded in August of 1974, the Warren County Ambulance District’s paramedics have been responding to 911 calls and saving lives in Warren County for 50 years. To celebrate, the district held an open house at their District Base 4 in Wright City on Aug. 2.
One of the displays was a comparison between an old manually operated power structure and the new battery operated technology used to move patients in and out of the ambulance.
Before the addition of the battery operated technology District Chief Darren Lenk said it was common for paramedics to have back issues from lifting patients on stretchers in and out of ambulances.
“Now we’re battery operated, and that takes a lot of that strain and injuries off of medics,” Lenk said.
There have been plenty of other changes in the profession during that time as well according to Deputy Chief Medical Officer Lori Sizer.
“We have such an expanded scope of practice from what we used to have,” said Sizer. “It used to be that you couldn’t put a breathing tube down into a person, now we have medications that we can use to do that if they’re not unconscious and do that, so that’s a new thing too, it’s much better care.”
Although the open house was celebrating the district’s accomplishments and successes in the past, some of its members are still looking towards the future and Lenk is already considering where, and how, the district will be forced to expand.
Currently the district operates out of four stations scattered throughout Warren County with a station on each side of Interstate 70 in both Wright City and Warrenton.
On a regular day each of those stations has one ambulance crew running, and two of those stations, Station 4 in Wright City and Station 3 in Warrenton, have the capacity for two ambulance crews if the need arises.
Lenk hoped that in the near future they would be able to make improvements to the two remaining stations and hire additional crew members so that each station has the capacity for two ambulance crews at a time.
“One of the biggest things is we’re going to have to add more crews with the amount of people that we anticipate are going to be coming into the county,” Lenk said. “That’s going to be one of the bigger things is adding more bases.”
Sizer also said she expected the scope of services provided by ambulance crews to expand, and that as years have gone by they have increasingly worked as a “stopgap” for those who are unable, or unsure, of how to deal with medical issues.
She said calls like these, sometimes referred to as mobile integrated healthcare are becoming more common, and hiring paramedics that are certified to handle these interactions is a growing need.
“It’s dedicated people that are certified in that specialty within EMS to be able to take a lot of calls for people that don’t necessarily need to go to the hospital but they don’t have any other resources, and we can provide those resources for them,” Sizer said.
