Volunteer S.C. Rescue Team Provides All-Response Support

Oct. 10--They stand and bow their heads for prayer, a group of a couple dozen men -- and a few women -- proudly wearing T-shirts bearing the group's name.

From the front of the meeting room Wednesday night at their base in Graham, Chief Kyle Buckner reads minutes from the last meeting, thanks the members who showed up to help with a water rescue operation in the Haw River a few days earlier, outlines some changes in a service contract with Alamance County and seeks volunteers to standby at a local fire department's weekend live burn.

They're the Alamance County Rescue Unit, officially made up of about 60 volunteers, a number that includes junior and senior members, along with a dive team that doesn't often have to respond to calls.

But the 40 or so active, regular members of the unit consist of emergency medical technicians, firefighters, plumbers, mechanics, lawn care providers and many who work multiple jobs in and out of emergency services.

More often than not, the public doesn't know Rescue exists at all, or confuses the organization with Emergency Medical Services, which isn't responsible for extricating patients from vehicles or rappelling down heights to someone in danger.

"They don't understand we're not tax-based, and we're different from EMS," said Buckner, noting that the Alamance County Rescue Unit, a 501(c)(3) organization, doesn't belong to the county, as does EMS, but operates under a contract with the county to perform rescue services. Rescue receives $102,500annually in county funds, with the rest of the group's budget coming from donations raised each year.

"We don't bill anybody for anything," Buckner said, recalling the regular calls and visits to the base from people trying to pay or complain about the bill for their EMS ambulance ride.

Each year, Rescue sends out thousands of letters to Alamance County residents seeking tax-deductible donations in exchange for a free professional family portrait.

The organization was started in the early 1950s by a few Graham firemen "who saw a need for rescue services in Alamance County," Buckner said. The group was initially called Graham Rescue before officially becoming Alamance County Rescue Unit in 1956.

OPERATIONS

Rescue has two buildings on West McAden Street in Graham, one of which is used as the unit's primary base and holds the majority of its equipment, with a third facility on Bellemont-Mount Hermon Road, which is rented by EMS as its Medic 1 site, Buckner said.

The Graham base is staffed with two part-time employees whose pay comes from the Rescue's county funding, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, with volunteers from the group currently staffing the base on Sunday. An updated contract with the county will change that, however, to paid members staffing the facility all seven days.

Each member in the group -- away at work during the day or at home in the evenings -- wears a pager, and when called, can choose to respond to incidents.

"Whoever's the closest comes and picks the truck up," said Jason Moore, one of Rescue's paid staff members who is also starting full-time this week with the Burlington Fire Department after a fire service career in other municipalities and abroad. He first started volunteering with Rescue as a junior member when he was a teenager.

The majority of their calls involve responding to pin-in wrecks in which a vehicle occupant is believed to be trapped inside and in need of being extricated.

Some members responding will go by the base first to get the truck -- and there's no predetermined assignments as to who will do that, Buckner said -- and others, who may live near or be positioned closer to the site of the emergency, will drive directly there on their own.

If the pin-in is severe enough that the responding fire department, which is likely carrying its own extrication tools, isn't able to safely remove the patient, Rescue, dressed in bright blue uniforms, steps in.

Requirements to be a member include responding to at least 15 calls a year, attending five standby events in the community, such as sporting events or festivals where Rescue is asked to be present in case of an emergency, and, until now, sign up for seven Sunday volunteer shifts at the base.

But many of the members far exceed those basic requirements, with some hanging around the base in their free time.

"Most of it starts with just a general interest to help people," said Josh Shumate, who also works for the Mebane Fire Department.

Moore added that what keeps a number of the volunteers around in the face of late-night and early-morning calls on top of other jobs is the thrill that comes with responding to emergencies.

"Probably, a lot of it is the adrenaline," he said.

Philip Gilliam, a mechanic by day, has volunteered with Rescue for about a year now. It's not uncommon to see him around the base in his free time.

"I got into it just to try a different path in life," Gilliam said. "I ran my first call and ever since then I've really enjoyed it. What better way to give back to my community?"

TRAINING

Extrication: "Most of what we do is vehicle accidents and cutting people out of cars," Shumate said.

In addition to the "jaws of life," the only extrication tool that comes to the mind of most people, Rescue uses hydraulic instruments such as a combi tool to remove patients stuck inside wrecked vehicles.

"We know that minutes count for some of these people," said Nick Martin, Deputy Chief of Alamance County Rescue Unit and a lieutenant at the Mebane Fire Department.

Moore described Rescue members as "the subject matter experts when it comes to vehicle extrication," and explained that by Rescue specializing in extrication, fire departments are freed up to spend less time and resources on it.

"It allows them to use their money elsewhere by not buying extraction equipment," Moore said.

Buckner said members train specifically in extrication techniques six or seven times a year, which is much more frequent than firefighters.

E.M. Holt Fire Chief Mark Fuqua said his department does have most of those tools and sometimes completes the task before Rescue arrives, but makes use of the resources if the extrication is still ongoing when Rescue arrives.

"When they get there, we utilize their equipment." Fuqua said.

Buckner said the only fire department in the county state-certified in heavy vehicle and machinery extrication is Altamahaw-Ossipee Fire Department.

Rescue has three crash trucks, which contain extrication equipment, rope and a starter kit for water rescue -- "kind of like our rolling toolbox," Buckner said -- as well as three quick response vehicles and a technical rescue trailer.

The organization's newest heavy rescue truck was purchased in 1996, and the two others are from the 1980s. They're raising money to buy a new truck to replace the two oldest ones.

EMS standby: The majority of the members are certified EMTs, and thus can respond to medical calls when all of EMS's other units are tied up. Alamance County EMS has eight ambulances, otherwise known as Advanced Life Support units, and when those are all in use, Rescue is placed on standby to take medical calls and transport patients to the hospital for EMS. Moore said Rescue is sometimes called to transport dead bodies, as well.

Members also provide medical coverage at events upon request. Rescue has two ambulances of its own.

Water rescue: "In this county, no other fire department has a dive team," Moore said. There are around 12 members of the dive team, which has conducted to dives to recover evidence for law enforcement in and out of the county, Buckner said.

The dive team is tasked with hooking up a submerged vehicle to a wrecker, Buckner used as an example.

Rescue also has members trained in swift water rescue, such as when someone needs to be reached in fast-moving water. The group has five motorized boats and two inflatable boats to use for still and swift water rescue, as well as a water rescue truck.

Wilderness search and rescue: When someone is lost in the woods, the Rescue Unit is there to search for the person, as well as use rope to rappel down a distance to retrieve him or her, if needed.

"They are very, very important," Fuqua said. They do all the specialized rescue stuff we don't do. Like your trench rescue, swift water, high angle stuff that the fire departments don't do. That's something that the county needs."

The group also has a K-9 team with five bloodhounds that can be used for tracking.

Members are trained in high-angle rescue, which can also involve using rope and other equipment to repel off the side of buildings.

In addition to hands-on work at different types of emergencies, Alamance County Rescue Unit provides on-scene rehabilitation services to firefighters.

They show up to the scene of structure fires with water and "cool shirts," a vest system that allows firefighters to cool off.

Though the relationship between Rescue and some fire departments around the county was once complicated and at times strained, Buckner said the unit now works very well with all the fire departments under a mutual understanding between agencies.

Around the state, Buckner said, some rescue units are shutting down because of a lack of funding and fire departments are taking over all the rescue responsibilities.

"They are an asset to the county," Fuqua said. "If they went away, if we had to do any kind of specialized rescue, we'd have to call Greensboro or Raleigh or some of those bigger places. If they went away, it would hurt the county and it would hurt us. We would probably have to spend more money and do more" training.

According to Buckner, there are no indications Rescue is going anywhere, regardless of its aging equipment. The time, effort and training members put in is worthwhile to them.

"I just enjoy it," Buckner said. "This organization has succeeded in so many ways ... If a patient leaves that scene alive, we as Rescue, along with the fire departments and EMS, have accomplished something."

Copyright 2015 - Times-News, Burlington, N.C.