Saving lives: Ambulance Response Team always on call

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Matthew Hubby
  • 436th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. --  It's a typical morning for the Dover Air Force Base, Del., Ambulance Response Team. Having swapped shifts a few hours earlier, the crew has settled into their work at the medical clinic. Then, their radios blare as dispatch alerts them to a call; someone has been injured. Rushing to the ambulance, the ART prepares to treat the patient as soon as they arrive on scene. It's just another day on the job for Team Dover's medical first responders.

Whether the call is a child injured while playing on the playground, or an aircraft related emergency, the ART is on standby, ready to respond. The team works 24-hour shifts, spending the majority of their duty day assisting the medical clinic. They have the unique situation of falling under the 436th Medical Group but being attached to the 436th Civil Engineer Squadron Emergency Response Team. After the standard duty day is over, it is off to the gym for physical training before settling in at the fire station, awaiting a late-night call.

"The hours are long, but the job is rewarding," said Senior Airman Daniel Shimanski, an ART member with the 436th Medical Operations Squadron. "We work hard while we're on call, be it a holiday, a wing down day or the weekend. Sure, the hours can be rough, but it's what we're trained to do."

Training for the ART begins at their technical school, at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, which lasts six months. Afterwards, they undergo a secondary phase II training, at either Nellis Air Force Base, Nev.; Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas; Keesler Air Force Base, Miss.; Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio; Joint Base Andrews Naval Air Facility, Md.; and Travis Air Force Base, Calif., which lasts six weeks. Once the training is completed, they are considered Emergency Medical Technicians - Basic, which means they are able to care for a patient at the scene of an emergency and transport them to a hospital. They are trained in the skills required to assess a patient's condition and manage respiratory, cardiac and trauma emergencies. The ART members rely on this training every time they get a call.

"We average about 30 calls a month, sometimes twice that in the summer," said Shimanski. "We usually see higher numbers in the summer due to people getting dehydrated. We also get our share of strange calls. Probably the most interesting call we've had is someone that had a mint lodged up their nose."

However, the calls range from the comical to the technically and emotionally trying.
"The hardest call we had was a 4-year-old girl who had fallen down the stairs at the air traffic control tower display at the Air Mobility Command museum," said Shimanski. "Her dad had taken her back up to the top of the stairs, so we had to extract her down narrow steps while trying to prevent further injury. That was a rough day for us."

Even though their work can be difficult at times, ART members are always ready to answer the call, said Shimanski. But they are not in their job alone; they also work with dedicated teams from the medical clinic and emergency management.

"We do a lot of networking," said Senior Airman Miranda Bryant, an ART member with the 436th MDOS. "We get to know our fellow emergency management personnel over at the fire house and the medical staff over at the hospital. We also get to meet some interesting people on our calls, even if they aren't in the best state. Sometimes we bump into them later and it's nice to know that our skills and training helped in their treatment."
The ART can be a tough job, with long hours and emotional calls, but the members of the ART wouldn't trade it for the world, said Bryant.

"I would suggest this job in a heartbeat," said Bryant. "It may be hard at times and the hours can be a bit rough, but when it's all said and done, we go home knowing we helped people, maybe even saved their life. To me, that's all you need."