After months of pandemic overtime, Waterbury Ambulance Service gets top state honor
May 22, 2021 | By Cheryl Casey
Members of Waterbury Ambulance Service Inc. at their station on Guptil Road. WASI was named Vermont Ambulance Service of the Year for 2021. Photo by Jaclyn Lombardo.
Waterbury Ambulance Service has a lot to celebrate as it marks its 50th year and just this week took home Vermont’s Ambulance Service of the Year award from the Vermont Department of Health.
In an executive proclamation signed on May 14, Gov. Phil Scott declared May 16-22 as Emergency Medical Services Week and released a list of individuals and agencies to receive special recognition, as it does this time each year. In announcing the honors, Dan Batsie, the state’s director of Emergency Preparedness, Response and Injury Prevention, said this recent round of honors was particularly well-earned.
“The challenges presented to our healthcare system in the past year have been beyond the imagination,” Batsie said. “Never before has emergency medical services faced a crisis of such length and complexity, but more than demonstrating their well-established ability to get the job done under difficult circumstances, EMS proved once again how valuable they are as a true partner in public health.”
J.P. Krohl from Waterbury Ambulance Service works a weekend COVID-19 test site at Stowe High School in April. Photo by Gordon Miller
Waterbury Ambulance Service was singled out for one of the top honors after playing a significant role in setting up and supporting COVID-19 testing and vaccinations in the northern part of Washington County, parts of Chittenden County, and most of Lamoille County over the past year of the pandemic.
According to Waterbury Ambulance Executive Director Mark Podgwaite, state Health Department officials contacted him in April 2020 to invite Waterbury Ambulance Service to assist with the roll-out of COVID-19 testing. Podgwaite agreed and ambulance service members were soon deployed across the state to help administer tests.
After the state entered an agreement with CIC Health in the fall to increase testing, another call came to Waterbury Ambulance. “The state said, ‘Hey, can you host a testing site’ and basically staff it ‘for the foreseeable future?’” EMT Moriah Keat recalled.
“Mark [Podgwaite] then asked me, ‘So, you’re good for scheduling, right?’”
Keat stepped up to the challenge, taking on the role of scheduling and coordinating three testing locations. By November, the ambulance service was staffing the state-run testing site at its station on Guptil Road in Waterbury Center. This site and another in Berlin, opened in December by Waterbury Ambulance, administered tests seven days a week and continues now.
Podgwaite said a need for testing in the Mad River Valley led to opening a weekends-only site in Waitsfield.
Keat relies on her roster of about 38 active members, local ski patrol members, and Mad River Valley Ambulance Service members to staff these sites.
Additionally, she said she tackled the “fun challenge” of helping St. Michael’s Fire & Rescue – where she got her start in emergency medical and rescue services – to establish a testing location in Winooski. Between long-term and pop-up sites, Keat is staffing up to five locations on any given day.
“It has been wonderful seeing everyone come through for testing, showing they care about their community, too,” she said.
And when asked to check, Podgwaite on Tuesday said that Waterbury Ambulance Service staff had administered 32,106 COVID-19 tests to date.
Adding vaccine visits, clinics into the equation
When vaccines became available in February, “we were tapped to be a vaccination hub,” said Podgwaite. Ambulance service members have also been visiting homebound Vermonters to administer the vaccine. “We’re just about finishing up the second round of shots for the homebound,” Podgwaite confirmed.
Keat acknowledged that the most satisfying part about her current role is how collaborative the past months have been. “We work with people that represent about 20 different EMS agencies. It is an amazing and absolute privilege, and the EMT community really showed up,” Keat said.
The national trade group, the American Ambulance Association, featured Waterbury Ambulance Service in an article this week as well. The organization represents 650 ambulance service provider agencies that employ more than 100,000 people across all 50 states. In the feature, Advanced Emergency Medical Technician Tom Leeman summed up the Waterbury agency’s role: “EMS plays a key role into [sic] the prevention of death and disease processes in a community. The stronger the EMS organization, the better the community can grow and flourish.”
Keat expressed hope that the contributions of Waterbury Ambulance and other EMS organizations across the state can inspire new models for understanding the role of EMT personnel in the community.
“We’re out in the community just about every day to begin with,” she explained. “We can help deal with preventative care as well. For example, a community paramedic might go to a patient’s home and help them with their blood pressure monitor.”
With all the Waterbury Ambulance Service can do and has been doing, especially in the last year, they still haven’t missed a beat in responding to 911 calls at all hours of the day and night, covering Waterbury, Duxbury, and parts of Moretown. The service also supports the Waterbury Backcountry Rescue Team.
“This year has been a remarkable one,” Podgwaite told the American Ambulance Association. “I am inspired by the way Waterbury Ambulance’s team has stepped up.”
A recognition event for Waterbury Ambulance is tentatively scheduled for June 11, but no further plans have been determined. “We need to find a location for that many people to safely gather,” Podgwaite explained.
Full list of Vermont EMS awards
Batsie, who also serves as the Health Department’s pandemic response incident commander, said this year’s honors to EMS members in Waterbury and around Vermont were well-deserved as so many stepped up to take on more responsibilities in the pandemic than they have ever been asked to do.
“From managing their own and their patients’ protection from the virus with new PPE requirements, to taking on homebound vaccination efforts, to clinic operation and staffing, our agencies have been a critical resource in Vermont’s successful management of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Batsie said. “I want every EMS provider across the state to take a moment this week to reflect upon their extraordinary accomplishments and share the pride we have in them for doing so much to keep Vermonters safe.”
Below is the full list of individuals and agencies honored by the Vermont Department of Health for EMS Week 2021:
Vermont EMS Lifetime Award: Neil Van Dyke, EMT, Stowe Mountain Service
Advanced Life Support (ALS) Provider of the Year: Rich Dana, AEMT, Richmond Rescue
Ambulance Service of the Year: Waterbury Ambulance
Basic Life Support (BLS) Provider of the Year: Matthew Pietryka, EMT, Hardwick Emergency Rescue Squad
EMS Educator of the Year: Keith Hermiz, AEMT, Grafton Rescue Squad
EMS for Children Champions of the Year: Dr. David Nelson, University of Vermont Medical Center; Kate Soons, AEMT, St. Michael’s College Fire and Rescue; AEMT Mariah Whitcomb, AEMT, Thetford Volunteer Fire Department
First Responder Service of the Year: Underhill Jericho Fire Department