Does Valley ambulance service require first aid?

On one hand, by Jonie Winder & Marvin Rankin

Don't blame the volunteers.

I have often heard in the newspaper industry, "Get the facts straight before you distort them." I wish whomever wrote your opinion editorial had read those lines before writing.

As a member of the Houston Ambulance Service, I find your article about our response to the football injury at Houston High School extremely disturbing and lacking in truth.

To begin, we did not take 20 minutes to get to the high school. Our 911 dispatch card shows seven minutes from time of dispatch to arrival on location. As this is a legal document your claim of 20 minutes is truly bogus. And I have to ask, how long was Kappler down before "the decision was made to call an ambulance?"

As to your statement that "the ambulance first stopped on the track," we have been told repeatedly to "stay off the grass!" We have responded to incidents at this football field before and were not allowed on the field. So, yes, we "stopped on the track."

And as for your "after some effort, the group was able to get Kappler backboarded;" have you ever "backboarded" someone? We are trained to do this without compromising the patient's neck or spine, minimizing the possibility of severe nerve injury and possible paralysis. So, maybe to you it looked like "some effort," but assuring the safety of our patients always requires some effort. Also, as much as we truly appreciate the help, working in this kind of situation with by-standers is awkward at best.

In order to understand our displeasure in your article, you must first know some facts. Houston Ambulance is a volunteer ambulance service, as are all ambulance services in the Mat-Su Borough. Webster's Dictionary describes volunteer as "done, given, or made of one's own free will." We do this because we care about our community and the people in it. But, we also have lives of our own. The Mat-Su Borough does not pay us to sit around and wait for you to call, we are volunteers, not paid full-time medics. If you want us at your beck and call then you're going to have to pay for it. Then and only then, can we stand by at your football games and your wrestling matches and other sporting events you may have. They had this service at Houston High at one time. The decision was made to discontinue due to the cost. Are the lights coming on yet?

We do the absolute best we can with what we have. I do not feel we, in any way, deserved the demeaning article you wrote about us. If your point was to inform the public of a need, you missed. And, I realize I am asking for the impossible here, but I would like an apology.

Jonie Winder is the EMT1-D assistant chief of Houston Ambulance Service, Capt. Marvin Rankin is an EMT 1 from Houston Fire/Rescue and Ambulance Service.