Section B
^ke CYleivA - journal
Thursday, January 27, 1983
Editoriab ? Cohuaas ? Features ? Classified ads
"We've got a bunch of dedicated
people here . . . professionals who care
about people, or they wouldn 7 be
here. '*
Jim Henky
Two of the ambulance service's three vehicles at the service's head quarters.
Dedication Is Standard
For Ambulance Service
By Bill Lindau
The ambulance service is for
people who want to help other peo
ple in trouble, don't mind taking
risks, spend hours in training
regularly when not out on an
emergency and who put money
somewhere under first place.
This came out of an interview
Monday with an experienced am
bulance man, Jim Henley. He's
director and he and his wife Linda
are the co-owners of the Hoke
County Ambulance Service. He
was speaking in his office in the
ambulance service headquarters,
the old, two-story house at 124 E.
Central Ave., Raeford.
As far as the financial rewards
are concerned, Henley said he and
his wife between them draw about
Si 2,000 a year. The pay for the rest
of the staff amounts to about
$36,000 of the total annual budget
of about $1 10,000.
The service has seven fulltime
and 16 parttime people, including
the Henleys, and every one of them
is a certified Emergency Medical
Technician, except the office
secretary, Jody Vipperman. The
other fulltimers besides her and the
Henleys are Guy Hardman, Ann
Leeton, Jimmy Stewart and Judv
Clark.
Henley got into ambulance ser
vice while he was still in the Army,
serving in the 82nd Airborne Divi
sion at Ft. Bragg. He started work
ing parttime seven years ago with
the Spring Lake Ambulance Ser
vice.
Two months later, his wife went
into training out of curiosity after
spending many nights alone while
her husband was on ambulance du
ty.
Then, she said, she got in
terested in the service, and she's
been in it ever since.
"It gets in your blood," she
said.
The Hcnleys have two children:
Jimmy, Jr., 15, and Teresa, 10.
Henley followed his father, a
career soldier, into the Army, serv
ing 15 years, most of the time at
Ft. Bragg. He's a native of
Alabama, but was an "Army
brat," as he put it. His father
stayed in service until he retired.
Henley left the Army in 1979,
short of retirement, when he and
his wife took over the Ambulance
Service and got the Hoke County
contract.
The Ambulance Service has been
having bill-collecting trouble
which county officials are trying to
help solve, with legislative help.
People the ambulance service
helped owe a total $54,000.
The legislative help will come
when State Rep. Danny DeVane of
Raeford gets the county included
in a state act penalizing anyone
who does not pay for ambulance
service.
The county provides the am
bulance service with a subsidy to
help the financial situation.
Henley, the administrator, con
ferred with County Manager
James Martin Monday.
Henley, the ambulance EMT,
had to cut the interview short to go
out on a call to help a girl in an
emergency.
Henley's story indicates efforts
are made constantly to upgrade the
Ambulance Service and the effi
ciency of its people.
Henley expressed pride in his
people.
He said there were none better in
their service in the state -
dedicated, caring, conscientious,
as well as highly competent
technically.
A tremendous improvement
came last year.
That was the installation of the
advanced life program. With
special equipment and training in
skills even beyond the regular
EMT's, the advanced life increases
greatly the chances of survival par
ticularly of shock victims and also
or people who have suffered heart
attacks among other sudden il
lnesses until they can be admitted
to hospitals.
Henley said the new system, in
stalled last spring, has already sav
ed at least five people. They'd be
dead, he said, if the ambulance ser
vice hadn't had the advanced life
system.
The county commissioners
helped set it up by authorizing the
outlay for the special equipment.
It cost the county SI, 100.
The advanced life program,
Henley said, is literally, a vital ad
dition to the service, considering
that the county has no hospitals.
The nearest are Moore
Memorial at Pinehurst and Cape
Fear Valley at Fayetteville, each
about 25 miles from Raeford.
Henley said these two get most
of the patients the ambulance ser
vice carries. The others are taken
to hospitals elsewhere in the state.
Last year, the ambulance men
and women answered 1,200 calls
for help, transported over 800 pa
tients, traveling over 56,000 miles
and working 4,473 hours.
He said more "pickups" of pa
tients were made in 1981 but the
Jim and Linda Henley, co-owners of the service, in Henley's office.
number of calls were less. Of the
800-plus last year,, 259 were taken
to Moore Memorial and 226 to
Cape Fear Valley, he said.
Of the 1982 calls the service
received, he said, about 30%
resulted in no pickups: it turned
out that some people didn't need
the service, and others were treated
on the scene and didn't need to be
hospitalized.
People with a possible injury are
examined thoroughly on the scene,
Henley added.
And the ambulance service does
go to the patient, wherever he or
she is, he said, and the special "in
house" training faakes it possible
for the ambulance EMT to get to
the patients in the most difficult
places to reach.
The training includes reaching
high places and includes rappell
ing, a mountain-climbing techni
que.
The ambulance service staff peo
ple trained regularly to be ready
for all sorts of situations. Last
year, for example, they trained
especially on a hypothetical situa
tion: a person was injured on top
of a high structure.
Later, that situation became a
reality. That was last year, Henley
said.
A man was electrocuted acciden
tally while working on top of a
water tank. EMTs worked on him
where he was instead of spending
time getting him to a place more
convenient for the ambulance peo
ple.
It took all the resources of the
ambulance service, and the Hoke
County Rescue Squad to give the
patient the best help possible.
Henley said the Rescue Squad,
whose members he expressed high
respect for, was needed to bring
the patient to the ground to the
ambulance.
The story should have had a
happy ending, but it didn't. The
victim was dead on arrival at Cape
Fear Valley.
But it certainly was not for lack
of caring and expert help on the
part of the people of Rescue and
the Ambulance Service.
Then, too, he pointed out, the
ambulance people go into some
situations which law enforcement
officers go into, but one difference
is the ambulance people don't
carry guns. Henley said some of
the ambulance staffs have been
assaulted and others have faced
guns.
In 1981, a young woman EMT
was injured when she was struck
by a motorcycle at a Montrose
Motocross competition. She ran
onto the course to help a bike rider
who had been injured in a fall
from his machine when the other
'cycle struck her, its rider unable to
swerve in time.
Speed also, of course, is essen
tial in the service. Henley said that
of all the 1982 calls the ambulance
people answered, it took an
average of only 7.9 minutes from
the time the call was received till
the ambulance and its EMTs
reached the patient at the scene.
He called that "pretty good
response time," considering that
this average included calls made to
places all over the county.
The ambulance service went to
227 traffic accidents during last
year, a greater number than in the
previous year, he added.
The service training program an
ticipates situations. So far, Henley
said, the service hasn't been called
to an accident involving hazardous
materials. "We've been lucky so
far," he said.
But if such an accident happens,
the service EMTs and equipment
will be ready to help the victim, he
said.
"We keep them up on hazar
dous materials," as much as possi
ble, Henley explained.
The regular training for the
EMTs for the advanced life pro
gram consists of 120 classroom
hours, 30 clinic hours at the
hospital and 200 more in emergen
cy rooms.
Then every six months after
ward, the people get 24 hours more
of classroom instruction and are
retested every two years, Henley
said? Currently, seven members of
the staff are in the advanced life
program, with ratings of EMT In
termediates.
One of the uses of the program
allows the EMT to get oxygen,
through a special tube, into the
lungs of a patient who has stopped
breathing, Henley said. He said the
program also allows introduction
of essential fluids into a patient
while waiting to get to a hospital.
But he said he wanted to em
phasize the quality of the am
bulance service people.
"We've got a bunch of
dedicated people here ... profes
sionals who care about people, or
they wouldn't be here," he said.
It takes a special kind of person
for ambulance service, he said.
On the whole, Henley said Hoke
County is well fixed with emergen
cy medical services, which includes
the Rescue.
Jimmy Stewart sprucing up an ambulance.