COVID 911: Waterbury Ambulance Service covers it all

April 8, 2021  |  By Mary Ann Lickteig

Ed Cinque from Waterbury Ambulance works a recent weekend testing site at Stowe High School. Photo by Gordon Miller.

To read comments posted on Facebook about Waterbury Ambulance Service, Inc. you’d think they’re running a hot new restaurant instead of seven-days-a-week, drive-through COVID testing. 

People keep going back, and they rave about the service. “I have gone weekly since December,” wrote Kelley Hackett. “Twice in a week!” posted Hannah Normandeau. “Super efficient, some wonderful light humor, kind and friendly,” Nicole Garcia added.

The 50-year-old volunteer ambulance service with 38 people on its active roster began helping out at pop-up test sites last May. In November, it started the full-time state-run test site at its Guptil Road headquarters that has been open every day since, except for Christmas. In December, ambulance staffers opened two other state test sites, both still going: one open seven days a week, in Berlin and a weekends-only site in Waitsfield. Mad River Valley Ambulance Service also staffs the Waitsfield site. 

In total, the three sites have administered 26,000 Covid tests as of April 1 and are among the state’s busier test locations.

All the while, ambulance staff have continued doing child car seat fittings and responding to 911 calls — 640 in 2020. “We’ve been doing a lot of creative scheduling,” said Executive Director Mark Podgwaite. 

Drive-up COVID-19 testing means people stay in their vehicles. A Waterbury Ambulance Service staffer administers a test in three steps: 1. Check in. 2. Swab. 3. Place in a sterile tube. Photos by Gordon Miller

No shift has gone uncovered. The COVID-19 team, which includes about a dozen Mad River Valley Ambulance staffers, continues to help out with testing at outbreak sites and, since February, with vaccinations. “We’ve gone from Swanton to Springfield and all points between, really . . .” he said. “There was one week where we supported — with one or more staff — 44 sites. We were busy.” 

The state has partnered with Cambridge, Mass.-based CIC Health to run its testing sites. The number of sites fluctuates; currently there are 26. The test, though self-administered, requires a clinician to observe, so testing sites are run by hospitals, clinics and ambulance services, said Kim Beaty, CIC Health’s operations manager for public testing in Vermont. 

Each day, a courier from Green Mountain Messenger picks up the completed tests, delivers them to CIC Health, where they are checked for errors, such as smeared labels, before going around the corner to Broad Institute for processing.

Having local testing available with or without an appointment — appointments are preferred and encouraged — has allowed businesses to stay open, cleared children to see grandparent, and provided peace of mind to hundreds. 

“Signing up online has been a breeze,” Marlene Maron replied to an inquiry about local residents’ experience with the Waterbury testing location. “They are prompt and results come quickly.” Maron is chief psychologist in the Department of Psychological Services at the University of Vermont Medical Center and an associate professor at the Larner College of Medicine. “I have tested several times just to be sure I don’t unwittingly bring any risk to the hospital after shopping at Shaw’s or accessing other local services. … We are very lucky here in our little corner of the world!”

JP Krohl from Waterbury Ambulance Service works a weekend COVID-19 test site at Stowe High School recently. Photo by Gordon Miller

Open for business

Waterbury Select Board Chair Mark Frier and his business partner, Chad Fry, have relied on testing to keep their three restaurants open. To be safe, Frier said he has been tested many times, “probably in the high teens,” he said. 

He and Fry own The Reservoir in Waterbury along with The Bench and Tres Amigos, both in Stowe. They screen staffers for symptoms daily. As soon as any staff exposure is suspected, they close the restaurant and send employees for testing and quarantine, if needed, Frier explained. They even housed one employee in a hotel for a week because their roommate had tested positive. 

Complicating matters is the fact that some staffers work in both Stowe restaurants. “It’s been a juggling nightmare,” said Frier, who has pushed to have restaurant employees — many of his are in their 20s — vaccinated without having to wait for their age group to be eligible. All three of his restaurants have closed at least once, and the ramifications are significant. Restaurant inventory is perishable, Frier pointed out. 

While his salaried employees still draw a paycheck, hourly workers lose income, tips and are encouraged to file for unemployment. “So having the testing in town has been extremely helpful and a big part of our ability to stay open at this time,” Frier said.

Other restaurateurs agree. Zenbarn co-owner Ari Fishman wrote that “to be able to get in quick and get results quick really helps run a biz and make decisions.”

“Same!” commented Nicole Grenier, owner at Stowe Street Cafe.

Testing families 

Last June, after state-mandated closures lifted and Kelley Hackett reopened the registered childcare program she operates in her Waterbury home, she posed a new question to the parents in her program: Is it OK if I hug your child? (All said yes.)

In the months that followed, she made sure to keep windows open to increase ventilation, and she carefully followed state protocols. The group includes six full-time preschoolers. Three school-age children, including Hackett’s 5-year-old, are there after school; on Wednesdays, school’s remote learning day, Hackett’s 12- and 14-year-old sons are home as well.

It was in December, during a conversation with a parent who is a nurse, that Hackett realized she could get regular COVID testing. She started going to the Waterbury Center site weekly to protect herself as well as her young students and their families. “It has been such a reassurance,” she said. 

Now vaccinated, Hackett isn’t testing regularly but she admits she was a regular for awhile. Once, when she pulled up at the test site, the woman doing the paperwork said, “You’re Kelley Hackett, right? Just remind me of your birthday again.”  

School teachers Kyle and Molly Dubois of Duxbury made testing a family affair. They went with their daughters, 8-year-old Emaline and 6-year-old Eleanor, to the Waterbury site so the family could spend time with Molly’s parents during February school break.

Molly’s parents live in Duxbury, too. They all spent time together over the summer, but once school started, they saw each other only outdoors to minimize risk. “We are in three different school buildings as a family,” Molly said. 

She teaches music at Crossett Brook Middle School; Kyle teaches third grade at Richmond Elementary; their daughters attend Thatcher Brook Primary School. “We did not want to live with guilt or the risk of having brought something home from school to share with them,” Molly said.

When school break began, the family quarantined and made test appointments. “My kids were nervous; it was their first time getting tested,” Molly said. But all went well. A hiccup in the state registration system mysteriously cancelled Kyle’s appointment, but he still was able to be tested. Negative results allowed them their staycation. They shared meals with Molly’s parents. The girls had a sleepover with their grandparents, and Molly and Kyle had their first date night since August and a morning skiing without kids  — “at our speed,” she said.

No car? No problem. Waterbury Ambulance Service staff accommodate walk-up tests too. Photo by Gordon Miller.

Taking on more

In February, Podgwaite’s staff began making house calls to vaccinate homebound Vermonters. They have administered 500 doses so far. 

Barb Farr, Waterbury’s transportation liaison and emergency management director, has personal appreciation for that service. Her mother moved from an assisted living facility in Dover, N.H., into Farr and her husband’s Waterbury Center home in February 2020. No one knew then how fortuitous the timing was. 

“I don’t think she would be alive today if we didn’t move her when we did,” Farr said. Her mother is 94 and receiving hospice care. She needs to use a wheelchair when she leaves the house, making getting to a vaccination clinic, especially in the snow, “kind of a nightmare,” Farr said. 

Waterbury Ambulance Service came to her, administering her first dose in February and her second in March, staying an extra 15 minutes each time to monitor for reactions. “And it was even on the weekend,” Farr said, both times. 

“They were just very professional. Very accommodating and very upbeat,” Farr said. “And we were very relieved.” Her mother breezed through her vaccinations, Farr said. “Just a little sore arm, and that was it.”

Post-COVID project

Waterbury Ambulance Service was founded in 1971, the year the U.S. Department of Transportation published the first national standards for the education of Emergency Medical Services professionals. It now has a $415,000 annual budget, two ambulances, 19 Emergency Medical Technicians, 15 advanced EMTs and four drivers. They answer an average of 700 calls a year and transport about 450 to the hospital. 

Call volume has dropped during the pandemic, a trend seen around the state, Podgwaite said. “People were just not calling; they didn’t want to go to the hospital,” he said. 

Calls to Waterbury Ambulance dropped 7.5 percent from 692 in 2019 to 640 last year. Transports dropped 10 percent from 471 to 424. Call volume remained low in February.

The service bills for transports, but not for answering calls that don’t result in a transport “so it is difficult to make ends meet sometimes,” Podgwaite said. The majority of the budget comes from transport bills. Towns served — Waterbury, Duxbury and part of Moretown — also contribute. 

Most staffers receive a stipend when they work. The state pays for their work at test sites and for administering COVID-19 vaccinations.

The pandemic has interrupted planning for a new headquarters. Waterbury Ambulance’s current facility at 1727 Guptil Road was built in 1983 by tech students at Harwood Union High School and it’s very outmoded, Podgwaite said. 

The training room is cramped, and as volunteer ambulance services move toward becoming “combination departments” that include volunteer and paid staff, he said, they should consider adding on-site overnight accommodations. 

Several plans have been drawn up and five or six sites — including the current location — have been considered and rejected. The pandemic forced the project to the back burner but eventually, they will need to resume future planning. 

For example, Podgwaite said, when it comes time to replace an ambulance, Waterbury has a problem. “Believe it or not, our bays are too small for the current ambulances being manufactured,” he said.  

Testing continues 

Vermont’s COVID-19 vaccination effort is opening up to new age groups each week. By April 19, everyone age 16 and older will be eligible to make a vaccine appointment. But testing remains vital as cases continue to spread among those not vaccinated yet. 

All state COVID-19 test sites use a self-administered test where a person swabs their own nostrils. Schedule online at healthvermont.gov or call 802-863-7240. Walk-ins are accommodated if the site is not busy. 

Hours for the testing sites run by Waterbury Ambulance Service are: 

Waterbury Center - Waterbury Ambulance Service, 1727 Guptil Road. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday: 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday: 5-8 p.m. Sunday: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Berlin - Inside the back of the North Country Federal Credit Union building, 3336 Airport Road. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday: 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday, Friday: 4-7 p.m.
Waitsfield - Waitsfield United Church of Christ, 4355 Main Street. Saturday: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday: 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. 

Mary Ann Lickteig is a freelance writer and editor in Burlington.