Every Wednesday for nearly 10 years, Ellen McBride steps away from her profession as a marketing communications director with Red Chalk Media to don the white uniform of a volunteer emergency medical technician (EMT) with Rescue Station 14 of the Volunteer Rescue Squad of Virginia Beach.
With 14 volunteer rescue squads and more than 1,000 volunteers, the resort city has the largest volunteer-based emergency medical systems (EMS) in the nation. They respond to more than 44 thousand calls a year.
McBride and her partner for the day, Adam Juma, responded to an early morning call. They are back at Station 14, near the oceanfront, for barely 30 minutes when there is another call for help. The dispatcher describes it as a fall. With that information, they quickly climb into the ambulance, flip on the lights and hit the siren. They are followed by the nearby Virginia Beach Fire Department crew, to a small apartment.
Once in the apartment, they find a man with an amputated leg, bleeding from the head. He describes his fall. While McBride bandages his head, she questions him about his injury. He says his neck hurts. The crew attaches a neck brace. The man goes from telling how grateful he is for their help to cursing because he considers the neck brace too tight. Together with the fire crew, he is placed on a stretcher, taken downstairs and into the ambulance. Once in the ambulance, he is asked a series of health questions. He says he has Type 2 diabetes.
After he is taken to the emergency room at Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital, they quickly refill medical supplies. Then another call comes in. It is a woman with severe abdomen pains at an oceanfront hotel. Again: lights, siren, drive.
Juma says the lights and sirens are always turned on when going to a call.
“Because we do not know how serious it is until we get there. When we are heading to a call, it is a priority,” he says.
Asked about how traffic responds to a lighted siren blazing ambulance on roads such as congested First Colonial Road, which they frequently travel, Juma sighs.
“It is tough because many people do not know what to do, they just stop where they are which causes everyone else to stop. So we are stopped. It is like they form a barricade. It is important that they move over, move to one side or the other. And if they can’t, to keep moving forward until they get to a spot, like a parking lot, where they can get out of the way,” he says.
Juma notes that 97 percent of people transported to the hospital do not require the lights and sirens.
Once at the oceanfront hotel, the manager escorts McBride and Juma to the room where the woman, a hotel employee, is bent over an ottoman in pain. They carefully get her on the stretcher and wheel her out. While in the ambulance, she discloses she is 12 weeks pregnant and suffered from cysts in her fallopian tubes in the past. She believes that is the cause.
At the hospital, she is placed in a room and the emergency room staff takes over.
The pair get back to the station, only to be there for about five minutes when another call comes in. They rush off again. It is barely noon.
Being a rescue squad volunteer takes commitment. Each volunteer works at least one 12-hour shift once a week. They are asked to commit for two years. Prior to going on the road to help others, they go through five months of training conducted twice a week. Recently some parts have been offered online.
The 157 members of the oceanfront’s Virginia Beach Volunteer Squad handle everything from responding to emergencies to support services.
Ambulance runs are not their only job. Volunteers work, with equipment ready, at Virginia Beach events such as the Shamrock Marathon in March and the Rock and Roll Marathon.
Volunteering as an EMT is just part of the job. They also dedicate time to help raise money for equipment, vehicles and uniforms along with the Virginia Beach Rescue Squad Foundation—the fund- raising arm.
The Virginia Beach Volunteer Squad’s equipment rivals that of any emergency services team. Their equipment includes the Jaws of Life, which is able to unhinge the toughest mangled car. Recently added was an oxygen mask for pets that may experience smoke inhalation due to a fire.
The all-volunteer squads save the city an estimated $24 million a year. It also saves residents and tourists because they are not charged for the help or the ambulance ride. One ambulance ride costs about $475. A fully equipped ambulance costs $300,000.
The portable computer allows EMTs to write detailed reports.
“We try to do the reports as soon as possible. They need to be accurate for the medical team and possibly if there is a legal issue, which is rare,” McBride says.
Volunteers do all the laundry associated with the ambulance onsite. This includes hazardous material cleaning if needed.
Every volunteer has a story on how they came to help. For McBride it started while a member of a local garden club. The club presented a check to the Virginia Beach Rescue Squad Foundation. During the check presentation, McBride started asking questions about the equipment. With every answer, she got further bitten by the bug.
Unlike McBride whose job is something totally different, Juma is emergency vehicle dispatcher. He usually works with his girlfriend, Danielle Sullivan, who is a medical technician. They both just felt a need to volunteer.
Dale Drescher is a retired Virginia Beach school teacher who was encouraged by a friend and fellow volunteer to attempt it.
“The first class was difficult. I did not think I was going to go again,” she said.
Kitty Schaum, executive director of the Virginia Beach Rescue Squad Foundation, is quick to point out that volunteers come from every walk of life and occupation. They range from homemakers to a retired shipping line president. Many are former military.
In addition to responding to emergencies, the squad helps the occasional walk-up patient.
“The Lighthouse, [a nearby rehabilitation day center for the homeless] is nearby. It is not uncommon for someone to come here and simply request a bandage,”
Drescher said.
She added there are times someone needs a ride to get medical attention, but it is not an emergency.
“Some people have no means of transportation. All we can do is take them to the emergency room,” Dale said.
It is no question that the squads handle many more calls in the summer. They range from a tourist getting a surprise knock down in the surf to heart attacks.
If an EMT saves a person from a heart attack, they are awarded with a heart pin. McBride is unable to wear all her pins because she has so many.
If a baby is delivered by a squad member, a stork pin is awarded. McBride proudly shows off her pink one from delivering a little girl last year.
“This [volunteer] work is very rewarding,” she said smiling.
For more information on the Volunteer Rescue Squads of Virginia Beach visit www.livesneedsaving.org
