CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: COURTESY RYAN BOLEN; KARYL CLARK AND TERRACE BAY FIRE DEPARTMENT
Top left: Volunteering needs family support, as Schreiber, Ontario, firefighter Ryan Bolen knows, posing here with wife, Kathlyne, and children Noah, 4, Patrick, 7, and Brielle, 5. Top right: Karyl Clark in the drivers seat of the Washburn, Wisconsin, ambulance. In Terrace Bay, Ontario (bottom left and right), volunteer firefighters join in community events (like at Christmas) and regular training.
Call it a trial by fire.
Jerry Roehm’s first call as the volunteer fire chief for Ontonagon, Michigan, was a structural fire that engulfed almost an entire block of side-by-side buildings. Winds kicked the fire across the street to ignite more buildings. Just about every volunteer department from the western end of the Upper Peninsula arrived, waiting for Jerry’s direction.
It was Labor Day weekend 2003, and the volunteers battled the blaze for two days. “We were still fighting the fire when the parade was coming down the street,” Jerry says. As the firefighters walked back to the fire hall, parade-goers cheered them.
For more than 30 years, Jerry has volunteered to fight fires in Ontonagon, the last 15 as chief. Like all volunteers, he’s on call 24/7. When his pager goes off, it’s all hands to the fire hall, and the first one there blows the fog horn to summon others. It might be a fire or a vehicle accident; whatever the call, they’ll answer it.
“It’s my hometown,” Jerry says. “I just like to give back to the community. Everybody else on the department is the same way.”
COURTESY TERRACE BAY FIRE DEPARTMENT
A firefighter, left, trains in Terrace Bay. Eli Wilson, right, of Washburn is one of the increasingly rare new generation volunteers.
Around the Lake, our rural areas depend heavily on volunteers in emergencies. Without the sacrifice of time, energy and sleep from these volunteers (and their families), help might be a long time coming. These neighbors serve as unsung heroes, quietly playing a crucial role in our communities’ health and well-being.
In Washburn, Wisconsin, emergency help would be a half hour away if not for its volunteers. Its fire department has 22 volunteers and handles about 75 calls a year, says Fire Chief Michael Pederson. At midnight recently, a woman called after she woke to the chirping of her carbon monoxide detector. She suspected a bad battery, but called just to be safe.
“We got there, and the personal detectors on our coats went up to 200, 300 right away,” Michael says.
Sustained carbon monoxide concentrations above 150 to 200 ppm can cause disorientation, unconsciousness and death, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
“They were in serious trouble,” Michael says of the family. “If they had gone to sleep, they wouldn’t have made it through the night. … It makes it all worthwhile when we can do something like that.”
Some seem born to volunteer. Jeannie Manning, who served 12 years as a volunteer EMT, grew up with an ambulance parked in her driveway; her father started the ambulance service in Ontonagon County, Michigan. “The ambulance number was our home phone number for a few years.”
If she cleaned out the ambulance, her father would take her to the Sip and Serve for ice cream.
As a volunteer EMT, Jeannie responds to many car accidents, at times sitting with a trapped individual under a tarp as firefighters work the Jaws of Life. “They cover the patient and the EMT with a tarp so they don’t get shards spraying on them.”
The process can take 15 minutes, so Jeannie talks to patients, keeping them calm and mentally occupied. Afterwards, “the firemen would be laughing: ‘Oh my gosh, we just love hearing you talk to that person under that tarp.’”
Each call can take Jeannie away from work or family for hours. “We’d get a call and barely be done with that and get another call. Sometimes I was gone six, eight or 10 hours – especially with snowmobilers. They tend to have their accident way out in the middle of nowhere. It’s cold and hard work.”
Some patients need to be driven as far as 120 miles to Marquette, especially for cardiac care, with the volunteer in the back doing CPR the whole way. For the driver, other issues and road hazards kept them busy. “If you were the driver, you had the responsibility for the patient and your crew. You had deer around and people who panic when they hear lights and sirens – it’s just as challenging as being in the back working.”
COURTESY ELI WILSON
Eli Wilson, right, of Washburn is one of the increasingly rare new generation volunteers.
Many volunteers sign up to serve the community, but not Ryan Bolan. He jokes that he joined the Schreiber, Ontario, fire department at age 18 just to drive the big rig. Ryan grew up in firehouses; his father and grandfather were volunteer firefighters. Today, Ryan serves as deputy fire chief with the Terrace Bay Fire and Emergency Services. He’s humbled by how he can serve his community – fighting fires, of course, but also standing by for an entire weekend each year at the Terrace Bay Drag Races, monitoring the Canada Day fireworks, waving to kids at the Christmas parade and visiting folks in long-term care.
Ryan receives pay as deputy chief, but when he fights fires, that’s purely volunteer. (His “day job” is as a sheet metal worker at the local pulp mill.) He and his wife, Kathlyne, have three children ages 4 to 7. Being a volunteer only works with the family’s blessing. “It’s a way of life,” Ryan says. “For people who join that are married, or have a boyfriend or girlfriend, they have to talk to their spouse and let them know it’s a fair-sized commitment. … It can put strain on the family life. You don’t know when you’re getting calls. You could be doing anything with your family, and you’ve got to go. It could be 15 minutes, it could be 15 hours.”
The training is demanding. In Terrace Bay, firefighters train two to three hours per week. “We don’t have the call volume like Thunder Bay, so it’s important that we’re constantly training,” Ryan says.
Volunteers see people at their lowest points – and quite often, they’re friends and neighbors. “You pretty much know everyone,” Ryan says. “You can see them in the morning, and the next second they’re in a head-on collision or having a heart attack and you need to help them. In a small town, you have to prepare yourself for that situation.”
Volunteering does have perks, even unexpected benefits – like falling in love. Washburn EMTs Karyl and Dan Clark did that 30 years ago.
They met at EMT training, when Karyl lived and volunteered in Washburn and Dan lived in Drummond, volunteering for the ambulance in Cable. When Dan was hired full-time with the Bayfield County Sheriff’s office, he moved to Washburn and also continued work as a volunteer EMT. He and Karyl would play cribbage, the winner calling dibs on caring for the patient or driving on the next call. “It was a strange way of courting, for sure,” jokes Karyl.
They married in September 1986, have one daughter and still serve as EMTs, though usually not answering calls together. Serving as volunteers set the course for their family life, like assisting at their daughter’s sporting events. It affects how they give each other driving directions, as in “Remember that place where we did CPR? Go there. Remember that bad car accident on that corner? Turn there.”
Karyl has served as a volunteer EMT for 36 years – the longest on the Washburn service – and has held an active CPR and first-aid card since she was 16. She was 22 when she started with the ambulance service, the youngest person they’d had at that point. “When I started with the ambulance back in ’82, there were very few females doing it. I already had some background because I was also a ski patroller.”
Volunteers can serve critical roles beyond medical aid. “I’ve driven a number of spouses to the hospital in their vehicles so they can get there safely, then waited there with them until someone else came,” Karyl says. “It’s not exactly in the role of the EMT, but you become like a friend. It’s not just the patient you’re taking care of, it’s their family.”
Husband Dan works as director of the Washburn Area Ambulance in addition to volunteering. “Most of the ambulance services in this area are volunteer services. Our service pays our volunteers $2 an hour to be on call, and they can be on call from their home, the beach, the library; they don’t have to sit at the hall itself.” They also get a modest fee of $25 for each call they answer.
The ambulance service answers about 400 calls a year in Bayfield and Ashland counties. There are two paid professional emergency services: one in Ashland and one in Cable. Washburn volunteers play a crucial role in keeping city costs low. “To run two people 24/7 takes 10 full-time employees,” says Dan, “and would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
Across the country, these services are seeing fewer volunteers, especially among those in their 20s and 30s. “What if I needed an ambulance and no one came?” asks Dan. “That is the hottest topic we’re dealing with.”
Some younger volunteers are stepping up to the plate. Elisa “Eli” Wilson is in her third year of service as an EMT in Washburn. The seed for service was planted after a friend died in a car accident. Eli has been mentored by volunteer Carrie Okey, who encouraged her to take the EMS course. “These EMTs I’m working with are so seasoned and so good, it makes it easy to learn.”
Eli balances about 20 hours a week on call, parenting her preschool-age son, working for Head Start in Bayfield and running her business, Soul Fire Pottery. When that pager goes off, Eli heads out, even in the middle of a pottery project. “I have my car parked so it’s angled out the driveway, and it’s zip, zip, zip and I’m out.” A typical call takes two hours.
She also helps at “Rescue Divas,” a camp Carrie Okey started where girls learn about CPR and emergency service careers. “Last year I took an ambulance out to the campsite with my son with me in his car seat … blasting sirens. He loved it!”
Eli emphasizes the critical worth of the area’s emergency services. “We’re all really valuable as a whole. Without one of those services there would be a huge gap in patient care.”
As community members, rural volunteers often bring something to each emergency situation you likely would not find in a big city. They can chat about mutual friends and family with those for whom they are caring. It has a measurable benefit, says Eli. “Their heart rate drops, it’s a great tool to measure their vitals, and that familiarity is really helpful. That is healing in a small way.”
The volunteers contribute to healing, it seems, in ways both small
and large.
COURTESY PAUL RAMEY
Through It All, a Volunteer
On a September evening in 1998, the Grand Marais, Minnesota, volunteer firefighters had rolled up the hoses and loaded their gear after extinguishing a home fire. Despite their efforts, the house was almost leveled, and the air hung with the acrid smell of smoke and burned synthetics. As with many remote homes, by the time someone saw the fire, sounded the alert and help arrived, the flames had already won. The firefighters could only contain the blaze to keep it from other buildings or the forest. And make sure everyone was safe.
Tim Ramey, a 15-year veteran of the service, arrived to help clean up when a super-heated cinderblock chimney exploded, burying him to his chest under smoldering blocks. “I was actually dead,” the much-alive Tim says today.
The crew rushed to uncover Tim, but couldn’t touch the heated blocks, even with their gear. Quickly, they unrolled the hoses, sprayed the chimney remains and pulled the blocks off Tim. He was rushed by ambulance to Duluth, where doctors thought he would die or suffer significant brain damage from lack of oxygen. His spine and neck were broken.
But he survived. After months of surgeries and rehabilitation, he returned home to run Naniboujou Lodge with his wife, Nancy (both in this photo taken at the lodge). He regained use of his upper body, but is paralyzed from the waist down. “It’s quite a miracle I made it through. I don’t have any sorrow about it. I did the right thing by going that night.”
Tim began serving with the local volunteer firefighters in the early 1980s while running the lodge and raising seven children with Nancy. He joined the department to help and to meet people. He liked the camaraderie. He also felt called to help, led by his strong Christian faith. Fueled by his faith, he’s found his wheelchair is no excuse for not volunteering. Three times a year, he helps clean a local stretch of the highway, same as before his accident. He donates time with Ruby’s Pantry, a local food shelf. He speaks to volunteer firefighters, sharing his story and encouraging them to keep to their work.
“Faith is a huge part of my commitment to service,” Tim says. “I feel that we are to be salt and light to the world and not to be holed up in a cloister.”
Felicia Schneiderhan of Duluth, a frequent contributor to this magazine, also has written for Real Simple and Parents.