Couple Comes To Rescue

Jan Kaufman and Rion Rodricks are on call 365 days a year. The two Carlin Bay residents are typical of rural emergency services volunteers throughout North Idaho. They’ve undergone the basic 55 hours of training, plus five hours in CPR training; they spend the year attending classes and meetings to further hone their skills.

Their reward is a feeling of being involved in the small community on the east shore of Lake Coeur d’Alene.

The couple moved to Idaho from California four years ago.

Rodricks said the Eastside Fire District “signed me up two weeks after I got here.”

Kaufman joined up too.

The two now work under the umbrella of the Harrison Community Ambulance Service Rescue 77.

Kaufman and Rodricks, unless at work or are on vacation, are on call 24 hours a day. The couple, along with neighbor Mark Harns, serves an area bound on the west by Lake Coeur d’Alene, on the north by the junction of Gozzard Road and state Highway 97 and the junction of Gozzard Road and Burma Road. The eastern boundary extends to Black Lake Road at the new bridge where state Highway 3 crosses the river.

Rural EMTs are usually the first people to an accident scene; they’re charged with stabilizing victims, securing the scene and taking patients’ vital signs.

The work is neither pleasant, nor necessarily safe, but Rodricks said the job is done to “give something back to society.”

“We have friends and neighbors who have and may need aid and someday we ourselves might need something,” Kaufman added.

They also enjoy the camaraderie of the medical volunteers.

“We have all kinds of people from every occupation … but once we are together, there is a sense of companionship,” Rodricks said.

Disappointments on the job are many. Topping the list is the loss of a patient. Kaufman recalls arriving too late to save patients in traffic and logging accidents.

But she also has seen much better results from her work.

“Recently there was a near drowning - a child,” she said. “We were close and able to get there quickly, clear her airways and expel water from her lungs. By the time the ambulance arrived she was breathing, wrapped in blankets and ready to transport.”

Both have advice for rural residents who rely on volunteer paramedics for help: Be sure of directions, know your road’s name, numbers on nearby mile markers and give landmarks.

While they are on call, Kaufman and Rodricks say they manage to distance themselves from their patients. They’re too busy to get emotionally involved.

But such involvement in someone else’s care is inevitable.

“It’s later, when it’s all over and you have time to think about it,” Rodricks said.

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