Paramedics credited with saving lives

Five months after Norfolk began operating an ambulance staffed with paramedics, town officials are crediting them with saving the lives of at least five residents who were close to death.

''Anything that helps save lives is good for the town," Selectman James Lehan said. ''I had a personal friend who had a heart attack and without intervention from the paramedics might not have made it."

The paramedics responded to their first life-threatening emergency, a stroke patient in severe distress, hours after they officially began work on Feb. 7, Fire Chief Cole Bushnell said.

''The patient needed immediate assessment that . . . EMTs [emergency medical technicians] didn't have the ability to do," he said. ''The paramedics made a difference."

EMTs can provide basic first aid and medical service while paramedics are trained to administer drugs intravenously, operate a heart monitor, and create airways for those having breathing problems, Bushnell said.

The paramedics work two to an ambulance on 24-hour shifts. They are on duty at least three days each week. Paramedics from Wrentham or Caritas Norwood Hospital respond when Norfolk paramedics are not available, he said.

Norfolk paramedics can typically arrive at an emergency in eight minutes or less. It can take paramedics from other areas five to 10 minutes longer. ''Those are the minutes that matter," Bushnell said.

A second town ambulance is constantly staffed by two emergency medical technicians.

The town has been able to offer the new service by training EMTs who already worked for the Fire Department. Officials are hoping to offer the service seven days a week within the next two years, and that will require three more EMTs to complete paramedic training and one new person to be hired and trained.

Bushnell said the paramedics probably meant the difference between life and death to the stroke victim, a person with asthma who was having difficulty breathing in March, a person who attempted suicide in April, and a person who overdosed on drugs and a diabetic who went into shock in May.

Paramedic Rich Yunker, who also works on an ambulance at Caritas Norwood Hospital, helped to treat the diabetic patient.

''Us getting there in time to get her the sugars she needed saved her life," he said.

The Fire Department receives roughly 700 medical calls a year, with half requiring paramedic-level care, Bushnell said.

Town officials began moving toward paramedics five years ago, when they learned that Caritas Norwood Hospital would soon phase out paramedic service from its Norfolk campus, said former selectman Jack McFeeley.

That service stopped two years ago, forcing Norfolk to rely on ambulances from the Norwood campus -- a good 10 miles away.

''We talk about having good schools and good roads. Why isn't having the capability to save lives important? It does save lives, and I know," said McFeeley, whose own life was saved by paramedics in 1990 after he had a heart attack in Foxborough.

The push for paramedics gained more momentum last year after tragedy almost struck one of the town's police officers, Lehan said.

Nathan Fletcher, who at the time was a call firefighter and an EMT himself, was stung by a bee at his home Aug. 20.

The then-24-year-old's allergic reaction caused his throat to swell. Norfolk EMTs picked him up, gave him epinephrine, and hooked him up to oxygen, but could not administer the antihistamine he needed.

He was on the verge of respiratory arrest when paramedics from Walpole intercepted Norfolk's ambulance on Main Street and gave him the medicine he needed.

''What would have happened if the ambulance didn't meet them halfway? There are too many risks," Lehan said. ''That made it hit home."

Annual Town Meeting last fall approved transferring $55,000 out of the town's ambulance revenue account to start up the paramedic service, Town Administrator Jack Hathaway said. It was a measure the Board of Selectmen supported unanimously, Lehan said.

In the future, the paramedic service should pay for itself through fees that are charged for ambulance services, town officials said.

''It's saved lives already and it hasn't cost the taxpayers any more money," said Hathaway, who worked on the financial projections last year when he was still the town's financial director. ''It really was a no-brainer."