It’s go time for a new ambulance station
May 19, 2022 | By Lisa Scagliotti An architect's rendering of the proposed new station for Waterbury Ambulance Service. Image by EHDanson Associates
The time before the COVID-19 pandemic can seem distorted in our collective memories. It’s not uncommon to stop and realize that it’s only been two or three years when recalling some event or milestone that seems long ago when in reality it happened in 2019.
The folks at Waterbury Ambulance Service are doing just that as they try to emerge from the non-stop pace the pandemic has served up to think about what the future holds.
It was just five years ago that the nonprofit emergency response organization began scouring the town for a location suitable to build a new ambulance station to replace the cramped 1983 station that sits back behind the town highway garage on Guptil Road.
Waterbury Ambulance Service Executive Director Mark Podgwaite and Administrator Maggie Burke at the Guptil Road station this week. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti
Fast-forward to 2022 and that station is nearing 40 years old and has become even tighter as boxes and shelves packed with COVID testing and vaccination supplies line the walls of the station’s main classroom-meeting room. The driveway in front of the two-bay garage is set up as a drive-through loop where cars stream in every day of the week with people coming in for tests or vaccines.
But the staff and volunteer board members of the award-winning local emergency response agency have pulled their new-station project off the back burner and intend to make it a centerpiece priority for the coming months.
With a new website recently launched, Waterbury Ambulance is kicking off a $1 million fundraising effort to build a new station on a site along Route 100 in Waterbury Center that they plan to announce soon.
The estimated $2.5 million project will use reserves the organization has been saving for years while turning to foundations, businesses and individual donors to pitch in the rest.
Reflecting on being named Vermont’s Ambulance Service of the Year in 2021 – the organization’s 50th anniversary – Executive Director Mark Podgwaite says “It is time we have a suitable space to meet our superior service,” in a recent letter to supporters.
Small space, big mission
Waterbury Ambulance Service Inc. in 2021. (left to right): Moriah Keat, Stacey Currier, Zach Arvin, Grant Thorn, Sarah Utton, Dakota Metayer, Maggie Burke, Kayla Reed, Courtney Guyette, Nathan Ceffalo, Harry Utton, Kristen Hamel, Mark Podgwaite, Anthony Kessler, Heidi Higgins-Cutler (With Ryder Lessor, future EMT), Andy Gordon. WASI photo
Waterbury Ambulance Service provides emergency medical response in Waterbury, Duxbury and Moretown and mutual aid to other nearby agencies such as Stowe, Richmond and Mad River EMS operations. Its annual budget is about $450,000 with funding coming from subscriptions, insurance reimbursement and municipal contributions including $54,000 from Waterbury taxpayers this year.
According to its annual report, the ambulance service responded to nearly 800 calls in 2021 and its backcountry rescue conducted 18 operations to bring injured people to safety from mountain trails.
The entire operation runs out of the nondescript two-bay 2,400-square-foot station tucked behind the town highway garage on Guptil Road built as part of a high school construction technology project four decades ago.
The service’s two ambulances fit inside their garage with room for staff doing COVID-19 testing and vaccines to work from a table set up in between. Cabinets holding supplies to carry on board the ambulances are within inches of the vehicle doors when they open. Snow tires in plastic bags for the rigs are stacked beside.
A new ambulance on order to replace the service’s older one is expected to arrive in spring 2023 and it won’t fit inside the garage, said service Administrator Maggie Burke.
Plans now are on the drawing board for a four-bay, 6,500-square-foot station designed by architects at EHDanson Associates from St. Johnsbury. The plans have been created with crew members in mind making room for space to shower and rest when on overnight duty. Podgwaite and Burke will have enough office space to not bump elbows when they’re both at their desks as they do now. It also will allow for adequate storage for important medical records along with the myriad of supplies for various trainings such as CPR and first aid courses and car-seat fittings.
The current station does not have enough room to store the backcountry rescue equipment and supplies. That gear currently is divided among several locations in town which makes for a slower mobilization when there’s a call, Burke explained. Everything would be under one roof at the new station.
Burke called the plans adequate but not extravagant. “We’re not building our dream home,” she said.
Looking ahead, Podgwaite said the summer and fall will be busy with multiple simultaneous steps for the project. Fundraising will be key as members look to the community and plan various events to drum up financial support.
Podgwaite said he anticipates that partners regarding the real estate involved will be ready soon to divulge more details and the project will move ahead with local development review. The schedule so far anticipates a fall groundbreaking with construction over the winter and a move and grand opening around this time next year.
Conversations about the project no doubt will go hand-in-hand with the ongoing mission to continue COVID-19 vaccinations and testing, Podgwaite said. The public will see Waterbury Ambulance staff at booths at upcoming farmers markets and summer concerts, the Not Quite Independence Day celebration and Waterbury Arts Fest.
Since the start of the pandemic, Waterbury Ambulance has stretched far beyond what its two full-time staff and roughly three dozen per-diem volunteers ever imagined. It’s operated a half dozen testing and vaccine locations regularly and traveled to more than 100 pop-up events, surpassing 100,000 tests and 40,000 vaccines administered to date. Through state and federal funding, nearly 300 staff were hired to conduct the COVID-related work that also included home visits to elderly and homebound community members for vaccines.
Despite all of that work accomplished, Burke said this next endeavor to build a new headquarters is a little daunting. Community support is clear from the current level of interaction with the public, she said, but people have been through a lot, too. And $1 million is a big goal.
“We’re a little anxious,” she said, “We’re asking ourselves, where are we going to find that amount of money in this community?”
Waterbury Ambulance Service, 1970s photo, (left to right): Sarah Utton, Luana Wilder, Bernice White, Rick Germana, Dick White, David White, Shirley Eagan, Elaine Jordan, Debbie Mulvey. WASI photo
See more about the ambulance station project online at waterburyambulance.org/station-creation.