Calm under pressure? The Arlee Fire Department may be looking for you

ARLEE — Arlee’s volunteer fire department could use a few more Emergency Medical Technicians. Interested? The work is challenging, and takes a strong constitution.
“We see everything that you’d have in a big city — just not in one day,” said Ken Light, the EMT service director. The Arlee fire department covers “17 miles of the third most dangerous highway in the country,” from mile markers eight through 25. That stretch includes the notorious Dirty Corner, site of many an accident.
“It has to be able to function in any type of scenario you can think of,” Light said, from a water rescue to a car wreck to hazardous spills to a sick baby.
Light described the personality of an EMT as “more born than made.”
“When everyone else is panicking, you have to be the calm person who keeps everything under control,” he said. “That’s how you save people.”
The job, while demanding, is a volunteer position. Training is rigorous, and includes course work and hands-on experience.
EMTs must also be licensed by the FCC to use the radio in the ambulance.
Basic training, Light said, requires a six-month commitment. Once trained at the basic level, EMTs can move up the scale to intermediate and paramedic.
Basic level EMTs can run a defibrillator, set splints and offer airway support. The list of services one can provide moves up with the training. Arlee currently has four basic and two intermediate EMTs, but would like more.
“We have two ambulances,” Light said, so the possibility exists that four crew members could be called out at once, as each ambulance requires two EMTs.
EMTs can also receive advanced endorsements in medication, “combi tube”, monitoring glucose and cardiac levels, and breathing treatments. The combi tube is technically called an endotrachial tube. It is a breathing assisting tube carefully run down a patient’s throat in order to assist their reception of oxygen.
It is used in many cases and conditions, Light said, noting tracheotomies, in which a patient’s throat is cut to access the airway, have fallen out of favor.
Once trained at a paramedic level, a volunteer would also be able to administer narcotics.
EMTs work under the auspices of a medical director, an MD who serves as the medical director for the crew. Arlee’s director is Kevin Eichhorn, an emergency room physician at St. Patrick Hospital who happens to live in Arlee.
“This is a hobby for him,” remarked Light, noting Eichhorn has served as an ambulance service medical director for much larger services than Arlee’s.
Anyone interested in becoming an EMT must undergo a background check, pay for the training, be at least 18 years old, not convicted of a felony and most importantly, be willing and able to serve.
The volunteers rotate on call shifts. The ambulance service has a mutual aid agreement with other districts as well, and thus may cover all the reservation, “from ridge top to ridge top,” Light said.
In addition, EMTs must be recertified every two years, typically after taking a refresher course or 48 hours of continuing education credits.
The crew also receives training on scene management, and must understand and relate to the differing jurisdictions on the reservation, traffic issues, hazardous materials, fire departments, highway issues and possible arrival of rescue helicopters.
It’s a lot of excitement, if not a lot of pay.
Anyone interested in pursuing EMT training can contact the Arlee fire department at Arleemontana.org