Ambulance Corps Attracts New Members To Help With Record Number Of Calls

By Steve Bigham

The Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Corps announced this week that its membership had reached an all-time high of 64 members. And that’s good news since local EMTs responded to a record number of calls during the first six months of this year.

According to Corps Chief Kristin Peterson, the ambulance corps responded to 849 calls from January through July of 2000. It is on pace to hit 1,700 calls for the year, which would far surpass 1999’s record year of 1,506. The continued growth of the community has played a role (after Danbury, Newtown has the highest volume of emergency calls in the region), but the largest reasons for the increase has been added calls to Lockwood Lodge/Ashlar of Newtown and Cornerstone of Eagle Hill. Those facilities had been served by Danbury Ambulance in the past.

Despite the long history of success in the ambulance corps (established in 1947), Danbury Hospital threatened its existence a year ago. Officials there authorized the hospital’s own for-profit ambulance service to transport patients when arriving at the scene before the volunteer service. In the eyes of local EMTs, it was an attempt to undermine the local volunteer service.

 In the end, however, Newtown signed a contract with Danbury Ambulance last September that allowed for paramedic responses only. The Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Corps is alive and well and has continued to log some of the best response times in the area.

It was only a couple of years ago that the ambulance corps’ membership barely reached 40. However, according to Chief Peterson, the deep dedication of the corps members has made all the difference. In-house training and other EMT courses have helped attract new members.

The ambulance corps is on pace to put in a total of 17,000 man-hours at the garage this year waiting for calls. Another 5,000 hours will be spent on-call.

Newtown’s EMTs have a lot of road to cover. At 60 square miles, Newtown is the second largest town in the state. It has 400 miles of incorporated roads and a 10-mile stretch of Interstate 84 within its borders.

Because Newtown is so big, the corps uses the first response system when an emergency call comes in. This system cuts down on response time.

As a 911 call comes in, the dispatcher alerts the volunteer corps by activating pagers, which are carried by all licensed members.

Simultaneously, a computer at the dispatch center lists the three closest EMTs to the scene who are accessible by an automated dialer. Those EMTs then respond directly to the scene, while others go directly to the ambulance garage on South Main Street to retrieve the ambulance.

Not only does Newtown ambulance offer the service at no expense to the taxpayer, but it also does not charge a service fee. Patients picked up by the Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Corps are never charged for being transported to the hospital.

What type of person would make the best EMT?

According to volunteers, the corps is made up of people from all walks of life, but the common bond lies in each member’s compassion to help other people. The corps’ members do not get paid. Their only compensation comes from knowing they helped out another human being, maybe even saving his or her life.