May 24--KILLDEER, N.D. -- To get to an emergency in the depths of the Badlands, the Killdeer ambulance crew drove, then hiked, then rode a mule and finally signaled in a hovering medi-copter.
It was a legendary two-hour response last summer and the person lived to tell of his incredible rescue, happily after all.
On Thursday, that intrepid emergency response group celebrated the construction of a new ambulance garage. It will finally have its own home after decades of using space at the fire hall.
Golden shovels were put to the dirt, marking the occasion. Construction will soon begin on a four-bay building and the crew will not only have its own home, it will be able to put a third, new ambulance into service. For now, it's being stored in a board member's garage.
The ambulance has seen an 87 percent increase in runs over a five-year average, years that have seen a Bakken-fueled oil boom, said ambulance service manager Ann Hafner.
The crew went out on 56 calls in 2006. It went out 288 times in 2012 and expects to exceed that number this year.
"We'll go way over," Ann Hafner said.
The ambulance service recently purchased a modular home to house the traveling medics and emergency medical technicians it hires in order to fill shifts on a 24/7 basis. The new ambulance garage will be on the same property.
Elizabeth Grove, who is training to be a paramedic, is one of three full-time responders, among 20 or so including volunteers and board members.
Grove moved from Hawley, Minn., and said that while the job is adventure anywhere, it's especially an adventure in the oil patch and the Badlands.
The weather is more severe and the industrial setting creates its own unique share of injuries, she said.
Her husband is a county deputy employed, like her, to assist the public through the oil boom impact.
"We're here to stay," she said.
Ann Hafner said emergency response isn't for everybody and it's like one team member said: "It's all in what you can take."
Shari Hafner of rural Beulah became an emergency responder in nearby Mercer County after participating in the civilian rescue of two couples and two infants whose boat capsized in front of her home on Lake Sakakawea.
"After that happened, someone asked me if it would change my life. I guess it must have," she said.
The $800,000 building will be partially financed with oil impact money, which for the first time has an allocation specifically for emergency response.
Dunn County Auditor Tracey Dolezal, an ambulance board member, said some of the credit goes to local employers who accommodate their employee ambulance volunteers who leave work to handle calls, sometimes back to back.
"It takes the whole community, not just the staff, when that 911 call goes out," Dolezal said. "Look how far we've come from the days of the old blue ambulance."
Copyright 2013 - The Bismarck Tribune, N.D.
