The Official Newspaper for Foster County
The Official Newspaper for Foster County
When your nearest hospital is 30 to 40 miles away (or more), the selfless dedication and expertise of trained volunteers in small communities can often mean the difference when the minutes become crucial.
The Bowdon and McHenry ambulances, in their capacity of providing Emergency Medical Service (EMS) to their surrounding areas, have a long and proud history of being the bridge to higher levels of care.
Whether they're transporting a patient or patients to Carrington, Cooperstown, or Harvey, they are on the front line of response in an emergency.
Contributions of the two services, along with the Carrington CHI St. Alexius Health Ambulance, are being recognized as part of National EMS Week, held May 21-27. This year's theme is "Where Emergency Care Begins."
Bowdon Ambulance Manager Cheryl Flick oversees a service which has 11 Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs), one Emergency Medical Responder (EMR), one Registered Nurse (RN) and five CPR drivers. Last year, Bowdon was the recipient of the Service of the Year Award from the North Dakota EMS Association.
Flick, a 34-year veteran of EMS, says of Bowdon and the capabilities of communities like theirs, "Our rural services are well-trained and needed to provide EMS in North Dakota."
Since Bowdon is part of a taxing district, Flick says that the service receives funding through mills provided by both Wells and Kidder counties, as their service area extends southward along the Highway 3 corridor south of Hurdsfield towards Tuttle.
There are four levels of providers on a typical EMS service, starting with the first level, EMR, then progressing to EMT, Advanced EMT (AEMT) and finally to Paramedic.
EMRs and the two tiers of EMTs provide what is called BLS, or basic life support, while paramedics' skills are classified as ALS, or advanced life support.
When a higher level of emergency care is needed to administer medications and other measures, Bowdon and McHenry can contact the state radio service to page paramedics from the Carrington and Harvey services for help, called an "ALS intercept".
"We intercept with Carrington and Harvey," Flick said. "Also, we can intercept with Kidder County, and the Bismarck Metro Ambulance since we added a few new townships to our coverage area since Wing closed."
Intercepts can be a crucial tool for rural services, as many of them do not have the budget to pay a paramedic on standby, or stock their ambulances with ALS-level tools.
Bowdon and McHenry's services are all helmed by volunteers, who are paid for on-call hours. That is in contrast to services like Carrington and Harvey, who employ full-time EMTs and medics on salary, but still need volunteer drivers when only one provider is on call.
"Our on call schedule is made a month in advance," said Flick.
With many volunteers living out of town, they will respond from their homes and travel on scene to assist the patient, and the ambulance will meet them there.
"We have to be ready to roll out the door within 10 minutes," she said.
But the main quandary the service faces, says Flick, is the prospect of long-serving squad members retiring.
"That's a major challenge, if we don't have [younger volunteers] to step up," she said. "Funding that we could count on from the state would help in possibly hiring someone to fill in gap times."
Flick said that in the short term, services like Bowdon and McHenry are poised to survive for a little while longer in their present state. However, the future remains less certain.
"Do I see us here in five years? Yes. Ten years, maybe not, unless more people step up, or we can hire."
The McHenry Ambulance Service has a roster of 13 volunteers, led by Manager Sharon Eversvik. Jerome Short is the longest-tenured member of the service, having served since 1981 (42 years), and his daughter, Jakenda, along with Jordan Kapelle, are the newest McHenry members.
Full rosters and years of service for members of the Bowdon and McHenry Ambulance Services, along with Carrington, can be found on our two-page National EMS Week tribute section on pages 6 and 7.
Editor's Note: For online readers, the two-page National EMS Week section is available to view via link at https://www.fosterconews.com/home/cms_data/dfault/pdfs/misc/2023-05-22.pdf
