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Published: May 19, 2010
Amy Condra

Drive through Goochland, and you’ll venture down roads that wind through a lush green countryside, past grazing horses, shimmering ponds and the kind of farmhouses where, you imagine, you could happily spend a few hours sitting on a porch, sipping iced tea and savoring the silence.

Most of us wouldn’t be inclined to spot the dangers that can lurk beneath those idyllic surfaces: A driver that has had one drink too many could easily lose control of a car on one of those windy roads; a horse could toss its rider off and onto a hard, unforgiving ground; canoes can capsize, sending those within down into cold water far from shore.

And that farmhouse? Well, plenty of people have fallen down stairs, or choked on a grape or a hunk of cheese, or cut themselves on a saw or a steak knife, all in the the comfort of their own homes.

Emergencies are, by their very nature, sudden and severe, and many of us are often caught unprepared when they strike.

But not all of us are—there is one group of people who know exactly what to do when a stove catches on fire or an accident victim goes into shock, and those people make up the 16 career professionals and 270 volunteers of Goochland’s Fire and Rescue Department.

This week, from May 16 through May 22, is National Emergency Medical Services Week.

According to the website of the American College of Emergency Physicians, “National Emergency Medical Services Week brings together local communities and medical personnel to publicize safety and honor the dedication of those who provide the day-to-day lifesaving services of medicine’s ‘front line.’”

Here in Goochland those people are willing to drop what they’re doing and rush to a scene that might well end badly; when it ends well, it is most often due to the efforts of those men and women who have volunteered to dedicate themselves to anywhere from 80 to 1200 hours of instruction, becoming EMTS and paramedics.

We rely on emergency medical services staff, we count on them being there when an immediate response can mean the difference between life and death.

The people who are willing to react calmly and competently at the scene of a car wreck, a heart attack or a gunshot wound, are the very people who should never have to worry about being taken for granted.

Interested in the Goochland Fire-Rescue Ride-Along Program, or in volunteering with one of the county’s six fire companies? Visit http://www.goochlandfire-rescue.org or call 556-5304.

 

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