For a 20-year-old EMT, Samantha Cairns has a pretty sophisticated view of the importance of volunteering in rural towns.
The newest and youngest member of Shelburne Falls Fire District’s ambulance team, the Buckland resident is an emergency medical technician who is on track to become a paramedic and a firefighter for her hometown. But in the meantime, she’s volunteering her EMT expertise for both the Shelburne Falls and the Shelburne Center fire districts, and she works for the MedCare Emergency Health ambulance service based in Springfield.
A month after passing her national EMT certification exam in January, Cairns began volunteering for Shelburne Falls. She has gone on about 50 ambulance calls so far, in an ambulance service that gets about 300 calls per year.
Since August, she has been working 40 hours a week in the Shelburne Falls station, handling weekday calls for the ambulance. But she also sleeps with the public safety radio scanner on and goes out at night on calls.
“I always think, if it were one of my family members, I would want somebody to respond, whatever time it was,” she said. “Living in a small town, I know a lot of people. I have connections here and, for me, it’s a way to give back to my community.”
That’s the mantra, mostly unspoken, of all the volunteer firefighters and EMTs that staff and support the fire and ambulance departments in our rural towns in the Franklin County and the North Quabbin region.
Cairns has joined the Shelburne Center and Shelburne Falls fire districts at a time when the community is getting older — and so are the emergency responders. For years, on and off, fire chiefs and ambulance directors have bemoaned the lack of volunteers compared to times past when most everyone worked in their respective towns, providing a ready pool of help, night or day. In these times, many people work out of town, meaning they are not available for daytime calls, even if they go to the trouble and expense to become certified EMTs or firefighters.
This type of work isn’t for everyone, and not everyone’s lives can accommodate the time commitment, but there is always room for volunteers to help, and there are unseen rewards. If people better understand the rewards that come from helping neighbors in distress, more would step forward.
“I didn’t even know you could volunteer here, growing up,” Cairns told the Recorder. She’s a great example for the rest of us and wants to add “recruiter” to her job description. “I would love to get out in the community more — maybe take out a fire truck and and hang around downtown, to get the word out,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re young or old; if you’re interested, in the least bit, you can volunteer and get all your training in-house, and do great things.”
Admittedly, Cairns has had an interest in medicine since high school, which probably is fueling her devotion. She got her EMT training at Greenfield Community College last fall, finishing first in her class. And she’s not stopping there.
“I’ve signed up for paramedic school next fall,” said Cairns. “If I do that, I should be done when I’m 23.”
Working for MedCare has given Cairns an appreciation of the important role rural EMTs play in the region.
“In Springfield, when I respond to a call, it’s five or 10 minutes tops, to a hospital,” she said. “But here, it’s at least 20 minutes from the hospital.
For a rural EMT, says Cairn, “It’s completely different. You have to be right on your toes, and be able to identify and look for everything. You need to know when to call for other resources — whether it’s ALS (Advanced Life Support), or paramedics or LifeFlight.”
In rural emergency medice, she said, you have to depend on surrounding towns — on each other, which of course is exactly what the people in her town do: they rely on her and her fellow volunteers.
It’s a great responsibility, and a great privilege, and a great opportunity.