Lack of volunteers threatens rural ambulances (AP/CNN) {Rural/small town}

Thursday, May 18, 2006; Posted: 2:19 p.m. EDT (18:19 GMT)

BINFORD, North Dakota (AP) -- Dorreen Beaver is a medical assistant, a junior nursing student at Jamestown College, a single mother of a 13-year-old boy, and a bait shop operator.

Still, even with her busy schedule, she has no problem handling the occasional ambulance call.
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Rural ambulance services would like to find more people like Beaver, as busy lifestyles, an exodus of young people from small towns, and burnout threaten the existence of volunteer ambulance squads.

In the past year, three ambulance services have shuttered in a state where about 90 percent of EMTs are volunteers, said Tim Meyer, director of the state Division of Emergency Services.

About one-third of the state's 141 ambulance services are at risk of the same fate, he said. EMTs and officials worry the shortage could hurt the quality of health care, forcing people to wait longer before an ambulance arrives.
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more: http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/05/18/rural.ambulances.ap/index.html

I'm on the schedule to drive, she's an EMT-B, taking her EMT-I course. Volunteer, we get a few bucks for every 12-hour "on-call" to satisfy the insurace companies...

You have to love it. There's no money to pay people to do it. So everyone on-staff have at least one, usually 2-3 other jobs. And yes, sometimes there's more than one accident, and we're already on the way to the hospital or back.

It sucks, somewhat. Actually, oddly enough, she just ran out for an ETOH rollover. Sounds on the radio like the guy's OK. The marshal may have other ideas. ;)