SABATTUS — Volunteers have shown up when a man wasn’t breathing, when people fell on ice, when two babies needed aid and at a turnpike rollover that rattled the driver and scraped up his dog.

After a nearly-six month pilot project, next week at town meeting voters will decide whether to make the fire department’s new emergency medical services unit business as usual.

Since January, 13 volunteer firefighters who are also trained emergency medical technicians have responded to calls for help whenever United Ambulance also was dispatched to potentially life-threatening emergencies. Fire Chief Don Therrien supported the pilot as a way of getting residents help more quickly and supplementing United’s coverage. The unit got off the ground with a $9,000 grant for insurance and supplies. 

Tom Avery, new EMS chief, said the fire department has responded to 133 calls since January; 87 had an EMS-component. “The majority (of those 87) have been the members responding to the residence without a fire truck,” he said.

Calls have averaged one to three volunteer responders each time and run the gamut from slips to cardiac arrests. Patients have ranged in age from 2.5 months to into their 90s. Twice in the last two weeks firefighter EMTs responded to serious car-deer accidents on the interstate.

“This has been a tremendous learning curve the last six months,” Avery said. “I couldn’t have predicted what we would run across out there.”

Though no situation has called for a defibrillator, “that could change this afternoon, you never know,” he said. “You never know what you’re going to roll up on.”

In some cases, volunteers found the issue to be minor and called the ambulance off, saving it time. In others, they’ve provided comfort, calmed family members and restrained pets. In all but a few times, they arrived at the scene before United, Avery said. That service dispatches out of Lewiston.

One couple grateful for the response on one of the early calls donated a $300 portable stretcher. The unit has picked up other equipment secondhand and has a running wish-list at the fire station.

In launching the pilot, Therrien said EMTs were willing to donate their time for the first 18 months, forgoing the traditional point system that adds up to end of the year compensation for fire and accident calls.

That’s left a handful of the same members responding to most of the calls, Therrien said. He believes more would turn out if calls were paid or more volunteers were outfitted with emergency jump-bags in their vehicles.

On the town meeting warrant voters have been asked for $3,000 to support the program in the coming year, largely for expenses like licensing, insurance and jump-bags.

Town Manager Andrew Gilmore said selectmen unanimously supported raising the funds. The Budget Committee also came out in favor. Approving the money on June 2 would establish it as another town program.

Gilmore said he was “absolutely thrilled and impressed by the men and women who are doing it and the service they’re providing.”

The pilot has cost Sabattus an additional $1,400 in dispatch fees.

Avery said people have asked about joining the department as an EMS volunteer but not a firefighter. He hasn’t wanted to expand the ranks until after the town meeting vote.

“We’re hoping people see it for what it is and what we’re able to do,” he said. “This is the norm for a lot of fire services around us.”

kskelton@sunjournal.com

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