Emergency services representatives gather for a photo after speaking to people at the Local Heroes and Big Hearts luncheon presented by the Kindersley Chamber of Commerce on July 14 at the Kindersley & District Plains Museum. Left to right, Deputy Chief Jeff Soveran of the Kindersley Fire & Rescue Brigade, who stood in for Fire Chief Ron Hope, Tracey Watt and Kim Johnston (at back) of Heartland EMS, Cindy Seidl of STARS Air Ambulance and Staff Sergeant Ray Blais of the Kindersley RCMP.
Kenneth Brown
of The Clarion
Representatives from various emergency services groups gave a snapshot of their duties and challenges to people at a special luncheon last week.
The Kindersley Chamber of Commerce presented its inaugural Local Heroes and Big Hearts luncheon on July 14 at the Kindersley & District Plains Museum. People in attendance had a steak lunch after presentations made by the special guests at the event.
Guest speakers from Heartland EMS, the Kindersley Fire & Rescue Brigade, Kindersley RCMP and STARS Air Ambulance took their turns talking to the crowd about their special tasks. People also had a chance to see an ambulance, fire apparatus and police cruiser up close after they finished their meal.
Chamber of Commerce president Eric Friesen welcomed people to the event, and said the chamber plans for the Local Heroes and Big Hearts luncheon to become an annual event. He gave a special welcome to the guest speakers.
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Kim Johnston and Tracey Watt, two advanced care paramedics with Heartland EMS, were first to speak. Watt said EMS crews from Kindersley respond to 40 to 60 calls for service each month. And the calls can come at any time. Crews could respond to five calls in a day or yet go two days without any, she said.
About half of the calls are for emergencies and half of the calls are for patient transfers. The EMS classifications for staff are primary care paramedic, intermediate care paramedic and advanced care paramedic. Watt said four of the six positions in Kindersley are filled by advanced care paramedics, the highest level of training for a paramedic.
She noted that the duties for EMS members in Kindersley can include responding to calls, helping nurses and physicians at the health centre, admitting and assessing patients and making house calls as part of a community paramedicine program.
Johnston said EMS crews in Kindersley go through the same training as any other EMS workers, but the task is different in small towns because local crews are always dealing with people they know. The good days are really good, but the bad days tend to be really bad.
“We have this huge variance and this emotional roller-coaster that we go through in rural Saskatchewan, specifically in a town like Kindersley where we’re a big enough town that we see lots of calls, but we’re small enough where we still know everybody,” he said, adding it takes its toll on the staff.
Fire Chief Ron Hope spoke next and he said the local brigade is a volunteer fire department that brings a professional level of service to the community. The local brigade has only 17 members covering a first response area of 3,854 square km.
He said the department is funded 100 per cent by taxpayer dollars, so the Town of Kindersley and Rural Municipality of Kindersley pay all the bills. The brigade responds to a range of calls for emergency service.
The brigade responds to fires, rescue calls, motor vehicle accidents, alarms sounding and nearly any other 911 call for service. He noted that the brigade is also called to help STARS helicopters with their landing procedures. Members provide fire suppression, rescue, extrication, medical and scene safety services among their tasks.
Hope said the brigade has a good working relationship with all other emergency service groups in the Kindersley area. He added that the brigade is looking for new recruits, so he asked people in attendance to help spread the word if they know someone who might like to sign up.
Staff Sgt. Ray Blais, the commanding officer of the Kindersley RCMP, said a person could make a plan for the work day, but then the plan goes out the window after they start work and that’s what happens for RCMP officers.
He noted that the Kindersley detachment has 16 members on paper, but the members have to cover 28 towns, villages and rural municipalities spread out over about 13,000 square km. The staff sergeant said it’s a large area for 16 members to cover, but the local members do their best to make it work.
Blais said he could give a long speech about a day in the life of a member but most people are familiar with what police officers do from day to day. Police often deal with people at the very best of times and the very worst of times, he said.
Cindy Seidl, the provincial director of base operations for STARS, said she looks after base operations in Saskatoon and Regina. A flight nurse, Seidl said she was born in Wilkie and raised in Biggar, where she still lives, so she’s familiar with life in rural Saskatchewan.
“STARS has often been described as the best part of your worst day,” she said. The emergency service, she added, is a non-profit, charitable organization dedicated to working with its partners and transporting “critically ill and injured patients.”
STARS, she said, has six bases across Western Canada and more than 35,000 missions have been flown out of those bases. The bases are in Edmonton, Calgary, Grand Prairie, Saskatoon, Regina and Winnipeg.
Seidl said STARS in Saskatchewan has just celebrated five years of flying missions since starting operations in Regina and Saskatoon in October 2012. More than 4,200 missions have been flown to 500 communities since 2012. When a call is received, flight crews are often in the air within eight minutes.
The pilots, most of whom are former military pilots, don’t have medical training, but they are a big part of the team and they help with equipment and patients. She told people about the STARS advanced care paramedic team.
Seidl also spoke about the helicopters and their capabilities, the history of STARS Air Ambulance dating back to the 1980s and how the organization is funded. The emergency service is funded 50 per cent by the government and 50 per cent by donations and fundraising, she said.
Chamber president Eric Friesen said after the luncheon that he believes it was an excellent event. The chamber was given an opportunity to have a STARS member speak at an event, so organizers decided to also invite local emergency officials to participate because they wanted to give the community a chance to show appreciation to those groups.
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