One more reason

Frontiersman editorial board

Our opinion

The Wasilla City Council has taken a commendable action by stepping in to fund three full-time emergency medical technicians (EMTs).

Hopefully, it is an action that will be handled by the borough in its next round of budgeting, as the need for on-call responders is increasing with every moving van — indeed, every RV — that crosses the Knik River Bridges.

Mat-Su Borough Director of Public Safety Kevin Koechlein said recently that EMTs in the Valley have been fielding upwards of 14 calls per day.

Although Koechlein said there is no set cut-off point that will signal an absolute need for full-time EMTs, the need for employees, rather than volunteers, has come for the borough.

When the assembly funded on-call EMT staff last year, Koechlein said it cut the "chute time" — the time it takes for responders to get from where they are to the ambulance — in half or more, reducing response time by four or five minutes.

To a patient at the end of Knik-Goose Bay Road, Koechlein said, that may not make much of a difference. But to someone in downtown Wasilla, it could mean a lot.

There are several cases in which four or five minutes could change a person's condition. Cases involving obstruction of airways or breathing difficulty are one obvious category in which five minutes could mean the difference between minor problems and life-long injuries, Koechlein said — and the majority of cases involving children are related to problems breathing or airway obstructions.

Koechlein is working with Borough Manager John Duffy to eventually bring forward an ordinance to institute full-time EMTs, but that ordinance is contingent on one small factor — funding.

As the borough grows, the demands of the residents increase, and the wear and tear on basic infrastructure components multiplies as well. Couple that with rising costs for services, supplies, utilities and other necessities for simply keeping the local government operating, and it is apparent that tax revenues will simply not keep up. And services such as on-call staffing for summer emergencies will continue to be shelved.

Maybe those who argue against further expansion of government will sing another tune when the EMT responding to their situation, coming from a job site miles from the ambulance barn instead of being on-call nearby, gets stuck behind an endless trail of RVs and is unable to quickly respond to the situation at hand.

Sometimes it just takes a few minutes to see another's point of view very clearly.