Local ambulances help hurricane victims

SUMMIT COUNTY — Two Summit County ambulances deployed to Texas to help with evacuations during Hurricane Gustav returned last weekend, after participating in the largest mobilization of emergency medical service resources in U.S. history.

Local paramedics Kim Campbell, Bill Clark, Ben Dengerink and George Rohwer joined over 700 other ambulance crews deployed to the Texas coast, and during the 10-day assignment they assisted with hospital and nursing-home evacuations.

“We are always glad to be able to send support for any major disaster, provided we can maintain appropriate service levels here in the county,” Summit County Ambulance director Sean Caffrey said.

Summit County Ambulance Service holds a subcontract with American Medical Response Inc., which in turn is the national contractor the to Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“I was pretty impressed with how orderly the whole operation was,” Campbell said. “We would literally line up 20 to 30 ambulances outside of a hospital and load all the patients in.”

While participating in the evacuation, the crew from Summit County met other ambulance service workers from all over the country and used the opportunity to learn more about emergency care in the most hectic situations.

“It was a really great learning opportunity for those who hadn’t been a part of a mass-emergency situation,” Campbell said. “Participating in mutual response to incidents like this is a great idea. Now I think we need to move forward and see how we can use it with police and fire.”