Last week, the Oneida County Ambulance EMT crew conducted the extrication of a trapped motorist after a rollover on the I-15, just outside of Exit 13.  While an extrication is somewhat uncommon, it is certainly not an unfamiliar task for the members of the ambulance team, who respond to all kinds of incidents in town and on the local roadways.  EMTs (Emergency Medical Technicians) are the first line of response for emergency incidents that occur throughout the valley and surrounding areas.

Trissa Nesbit started taking EMT classes in 2016, and progressed through the Advanced EMT program to the point where she is now teaching an Advanced course herself.  She also works for the Oneida County Ambulance.  Having always wanted to work in emergency medicine, she took the opportunity to do exactly that when she moved back to Malad from South Dakota a few years ago.

Given its relatively small population, one might expect that many of the calls are fairly routine.  And indeed, that is often true.  “A lot of our runs are taking people from our hospital to a higher level of care at different hospitals,” Trissa says.  Many of these cases have underlying conditions that are quite serious, and require transport to facilities with more specialized staff for intervention.   “We do those transports and then we also get a lot of calls for sick people needing to be taken to the hospital, home accidents and numerous car accidents/rollovers.”  Medical calls are fairly constant during the week, and given the busy status of the I-15, traffic incidents are also a regular feature of the job, especially during weather events.

While Oneida County’s ambulance doesn’t have any paramedics, Nesbit explains that “We have EMR (Emergency Medical Responder), EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) and AEMT (Advanced Emergency Medical Technician)”, all of whom provide life-saving interventions on the scene, and during transport to local and regional medical facilities.  “There are many things that people don’t realize about us,” Nesbit continues.  “Most of us love what we do and love to help people in their time of need.  I don’t think a lot of people realize that after we help them, we think about them a lot and hope they are doing better or recovering.  Sometimes we get to know that outcome after we take them to the hospital, and sometimes we don’t.  We always wonder after our calls.”

  The Oneida County Ambulance is staffed primarily by people who volunteer their time and skills for the benefit of the community.  “I don’t think people realize that we are a volunteer organization.  We sign up to help cover shifts and then need to be in the county and available at a moment’s notice if our radios go off.  We can’t just up and leave town if we are on call without getting someone to cover for us. We usually have three technicians on every shift and at least one of them needs to be an Advanced.  Our shifts are 12 hour shifts and run from 6am-6pm and then 6pm-6am.  Some of us take four shifts a month and some of us are able to cover upwards of 20 shifts per month,” Nesbit says. The job itself can come with a high level of stress and responsibility, but the trade-off comes in the form of satisfaction for being able to provide a critical and invaluable service to people in need.  “Every one of our EMTs has a passion for doing this.  We love helping people and we love the medicine aspect of it,” Nesbit says.  

The emergency care positions also involve more than the active day-to-day work.  Ongoing education is also a necessity for the job.  “We all are required to take continuing education to keep up on all the changes happening all the time.  We also as a group will have monthly training meetings where we meet together and review procedures or learn new policies.  To be an EMT, you have to be state certified, but you can also go as far as to be nationally certified which is what about 90 % of our team is,” she says.

Nesbit also provided some thoughts on the recent extrication, which resulted in freeing the accident victim Kayli Householder from the wreck, and allowing her to be transported to an emergency care facility at Nell J Redfield and then to Pocatello.  “Extrication is very tricky,” she said.  “There are so many things that we have to think about when attempting to remove a patient from a vehicle.  The first is safety of our own extrication team and EMTs. If we are hurt, we can’t help the patient.  When attempting to extricate patients, we have to be on our guard and pay close attention to how the car is sitting, what it is on (like slippery snow, side hill, electrical lines) and what is around it.  Numerous times the patient is hurting inside the car and so we have to work smart and fast to be able to get to them.  Some patients are not fully in or out of the car and this also makes it difficult.  If we need to break any glass, we have to cover the patient so that none of the broken glass will fall on them.  Sometimes we have to lift the car up to have access to the patient, this can be difficult if the car wants to slide every time we inch the car up (which is what was happening on this particular accident).  Other times we have had EMTs actually climb into the vehicle to address life threatening wounds while extrication is working to provide a way to get the patient safely out.”

As with this recent incident, weather can play havoc on people’s normal driving routine.  Winter, of course, is typically the time of year most likely to result in road accidents.   “Winter driving can always be scary,” Nesbit said.  “The worst is the black ice, which we cannot see.  This causes numerous accidents.  We ask that people drive slow and pay attention to their surroundings.  Most of our rollovers occur on the summit between mile marker 20 and 24.  We have nicknamed this the ‘Malad Triangle’ because of all the accidents that are there.  Please drive extra safe in that area.  Also, it is very important to wear your seat belt.  When we respond to a rollover, if the patient was wearing their seat belt, most of the time they walk away with hardly any injuries.  Those not wearing their seat belt have numerous injuries and are almost always taken to the hospital to be treated.  Seat belts save lives, so please wear them.”

The ambulance workers are always on call to respond to incidents that happen on and off the freeway, and without them the survivability of accidents would be considerably reduced.  But the workers themselves are also exposed during their responses, and Nesbit reminds drivers that “Something that would really help us out, would be when we are on the freeway working on a patient, please slow down when passing us.  It is very scary for us when we are focusing on our patient and then almost get run over by someone who is driving past us at excessive speeds.  Please pay attention and make it easier for us to help the people that need it without worrying.”

  It’s also true that for many incidents in town and elsewhere the quicker the response is, the more likely it is to have a positive outcome.  One of the things Trissa says that can help is to have a higher level of first aid training among the general public.  “Also, having more people in our community that are CPR certified [would help],” she says.  “It helps us tremendously when we get on scene and high quality CPR has already been started.  Our ambulance unit teaches classes and would love to teach more people so we can all work together to save lives.”  

During this time of year—when both the number of travelers and the dangerous conditions on the road are at their peaks—it is especially important to be mindful and safety minded when using the roads.