VIEWPOINT: What If You Dialed 911 And No One Showed Up?

By Adele Kristiansson

National EMS Week is May 16 to 22.

This time last year, we at Southampton Volunteer Ambulance felt like civilians caught behind enemy lines.

The “Mission Impossible” tape had self-destructed behind us, and the fed had “disavowed any knowlege of our participation, should anything go wrong” — like, God forbid, we catch COVID in the line of duty. No disability, unemployment, financial aid, health benefits, medical priority. No preferential COVID testing. Nada.

Low call volume was a barometer of how scared the community was: In March, April and May 2020, it plummeted to a creepy, this-town’s-too-quiet lull. Traumatic injuries and MVAs (car crashes) declined, as people huddled at home — or feared the hospital more than their presenting complaint.

Our personal call volume revealed how nakedly at-risk we EMS volunteers felt.

I was one of the members who was recused from running calls due to personal health risk, or family/employer risk concerns. So a relative few bore the greater burden, some running close to 400 calls.

In May, I eased back into service, deciding to drive rather than tech, to eliminate my patient contact in the back of the rig. We treated every call as potential COVID and adjusted our personal risk threshold case by case. Often, we learned boundaries the hard way, realizing post facto the risks presented by our own kindness.

It’s hard to override years of training and the impulse to intervene as another suffers.

My first call back, we responded to a code, an unwitnessed drowning. Of course, I ran across the field to help wheel the stretcher; naturally, I stabilized our patient’s head while our medic suctioned, and we progressed CPR. Only later, did I recognize I had placed myself in an enclosed space during the only aerosolized protocol the Centers for Disease Control and Protection hadn’t eliminated.

A dawning fear gripped my stomach: Could I be infected by a newly deceased patient?

By summer, call volume had risen dramatically, skyrocketing housing and rental prices reflected the exodus of the city-dwellers. Our patients had to adjust to moving protocols, too, and some of them pushed back.

Again, I learned the hard way that I couldn’t permit family members to ride up front, a courtesy we normally extend. Some couldn’t see past their own concern to appreciate how their proximity posed a potential hazard to me.

By fall, The New Yorker posted a great headline: “It’s Labor Day, and Nobody’s *%&# Leaving the Hamptons.” No *&^%#, Sherlock. No Tumbleweed Tuesday. Public school admissions spiked, and 2020 was our busiest year ever, with 1,075 calls.

Phil Cammann, our former Suffolk REMSCO president, said, “COVID will find and expose our stress cracks.” COVID showed me how resilient — and fragile — our EMS infrastructure is. Foremost, how the line of “first” response shifts so quickly, including nurses, doctors, Uber drivers, checkout clerks, delivery people, teachers and long-term care providers, as well as EMS, fire and police.

Secondly, how the Big Ask keeps coming. In January, after 10 months of limited PPE supplies, revolving-door protocols, chronic worry, the rise of Zoom and a Herculean effort to balance conduct of business with member security, we got to the front of the vaccine line.

No sooner had we mobilized and up-trained recused members than we were asked to learn vaccination protocols and serve eight-hour stand-by shifts at community vaccine sites. While people were delighted to get their shots, did they recognize the many sacrifices, made by so many unseen neighbors, that made their privilege possible?

Today, I reflect upon the domino effect of the Colonial Pipeline cyber attack: panic lines at gas stations, resource insecurity, an outcry for stronger, more protected infrastructure. I see a hostage-taking of America quite similar to our experience with COVID. I see, anew, how the many are dependent upon the few. How personal security depends upon collective vigilance. How we cannot rest while others carry the load.

As our federal government seeks to strengthen national infrastructure, I wonder: Are we considering fully the human factor in our national infrastructure? Do we recognize our dependence upon volunteer service? Do we appreciate the rising personal cost of being a volunteer? What are we each doing to preserve the volunteer infrastructure of our community?

Serving my community is a guiding principle I have cultivated all my life. Service is a foundational value of American democracy and a gateway to our cultural experience. Don’t you feel safer knowing someone will help if you get hurt or in trouble? What if you dialed 911 and no one showed up?

Yet volunteer EMS is becoming a luxury that many of us struggle to afford. Income disparity squeezing out the working class means people need two to three jobs to survive — less time for running rigs 24/7. In the land of the 4,000-to-20,000-square-foot McMansion, it’s not “profitable” to build housing affordable to the young people we need to rejuvenate our ranks and provide primary medical services.

Despite these hardships — despite job loss, economic hardship, illness, home-schooling and additional EMS demands — SVA members served even more last year. We added 18 new members to our ranks, appointed a district supervisor to help us manage the long view, and continued plans for a new building to replace the tin can we built in 1970, when we ran calls in a retrofitted hearse.

Volunteer EMS is hybridizing. In other states, you can get whacked with a $2,000 to $4,000 bill for emergency transport. We plan hard to keep our services free of charge and to secure universal access to emergency care.

Waving at us in the July 4 parade is all well and good, but if we are to survive, we need global support at all community levels: planning, funding, housing, social services.

Help however you can. Visit us at www.townems.org. Metaphorically speaking, don’t simply draft the ambulance as we make our way through heavy traffic — yield, and help pave the way.

Adele Kristiansson lives in Water Mill and is an EMT/driver with Southampton Volunteer Ambulance.