What is a volunteer in the Ambulance Corps?

Editor’s note: May 20-26 was National Emergency Medical Services Week. Robin Schamarek from the Warwick Volunteer Ambulance Corps provided the follow essay to describe the volunteer effort. I would like the community to understand who we are and what we do. A volunteer ambulance corps member is an individual like you. We dedicate time and money to help the people and the community. We dedicate our time to become certified in First Aid and CPR, some of us even go on to become an EMT, (which in itself is hundreds of hours training). We attend monthly meetings to learn what is happening in the corps. Training to learn the newest skills. Rig checks to restock and make sure all equipment on the ambulance is there and in working order. In addition to this we attend many different drills in our region to prepare for the possibility of a major disaster. None of this includes the administration duties involved with running an ambulance corps. All to better help you in an emergency. When an emergency arises we have to act. That means we stop what we are doing and respond to the bay to meet the ambulance. Yes, during family or holiday dinners, kid’s ball games and at all hours of the day and night. We can also first respond to the scene of the emergency if it is closer for us. By first responding, we can get to you sooner to start patient care. You may see us during the day or night with our green light blinking in your rear-view mirror, and thank you for yielding to us so we can get to the emergency. Once at the scene we give our patient the most professional care we possibly can. We then transport you in the ambulance to the hospital where you are and turned over to the nurses to get the advanced care needed. Only then is our job done. We have to fill out paperwork, bring back the ambulance and re-stock it to make sure we are ready for the next call. As I mentioned before, yes, we also spend our own money to be a volunteer. There is no pay for us, we use our gasoline to go to and from the ambulance bay and different training centers. We buy our own emergency light for our vehicle and there is always something we feel we need to buy to better help us treat our patients. We spend hundreds of hours of our time dedicated to become better health care providers to our community and hundreds of hours in emergency situations. Is this article a pat on the back? You bet it is, we are proud of what we do. There is no greater reward than to know that you are helping others. We feel the adrenalin rush when the call comes in, the satisfaction of knowing you are easing someone’s pain or saving someone’s life. We see the miracle of a child being born. But we also feel the heart ache of knowing you did everything you possibly could and you still did not save someone’s life. That hurts the most, so we go home, hug our family, tell them we love them, and know we gave it our all. That is the life of a volunteer in the Ambulance Corps. As the saying goes: “We volunteer because your life depends on it.” Thank you and God bless all the volunteers of the world.