Volunteer firefighters a lifeline in rural Alberta with EMS system under strain
CBC
When the fire crew arrived at the crash, they knew it would be a difficult day: the woman trapped inside was the wife of a firefighter rushing to the scene.
"My heart sunk," said Glendon, Alta., firefighter Derek Cote about the call, "I [still] didn't know how bad it was."
On a blustery winter morning, volunteer firefighters tore the roof off the pickup truck with the jaws of life.
Her truck had rolled over into a ditch along Highway 28 in northeastern Alberta. The driver was pushed against a smashed door buried in 60 centimetres of fresh snow.
Firefighters arrived first on scene about 16 minutes after receiving the call. Next were RCMP, and finally, paramedics, about 25 minutes after the initial call.
The ambulance drove away with the patient on a stretcher, her husband by her side. Luckily, her injuries were minor.
In a small town like Glendon, population 448, firefighters are accustomed to waiting for an ambulance as EMS dispatch is 40 kilometres away in the town of Bonnyville. But the pressure on volunteer crews has grown in recent years.
From 2017 to 2022, the number of EMS emergencies in Alberta grew by 39 per cent, according to a report released in January, with rural areas seeing even higher growth. In that same five-year period, the average response time for an ambulance rose by 18-and-a-half minutes.
That takes a toll on volunteers, said Glendon station chief Dan Amalia.
"There are times we might be doing CPR for 15, 20 minutes and that's just physically exhausting," Amalia said. "[If it's] somebody you know that can have quite a mental strain while you're waiting, and waiting, for EMS to arrive."
Close to 80 per cent of all firefighters in Canada are volunteers, according to the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs census.
One of the biggest problems tying up local paramedics is that rural ambulances are regularly travelling long distances in non-emergency situations, said Dan Heney, Bonnyville Regional Fire Authority chief.
On a typical day, one of the three ambulances available in Bonnyville is driving someone to Edmonton for medical care. It typically takes about six hours round trip, but if there's a hospital delay or another call for them within the city, the trip can last an entire 12-hour shift.
"An ambulance that is transferring from here into Edmonton means one less ambulance that's here to respond to emergencies in the community," Heney said.