Help Whenever You Need It

By Ruth Melville

The Lions Club is an international secular service organization founded in 1917. Their motto is “We Serve,” and it would be hard to find a better description of the Norfolk Lions Club.

The Norfolk Lions Club is an invaluable organization that provides help to the community in many ways. Its members sponsor eye screening for children, give scholarships to graduating seniors, donate food baskets, donate to the selectmen’s fuel assistance fund and sponsor an annual blood drive on Veterans Day, among other things.

But the main purpose of the Norfolk Lions Club, which is celebrating its 65th year, is to provide ambulance service to the town of Norfolk and the western part of Colebrook. The ambulance service is 100 percent volunteer, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and non-billing.

Since 2010, the Lions Club Ambulance has been housed in a new building at the corner of Route 44 and Shepard Road. State and town money paid for the shell of the building, but the Lions Club was responsible for outfitting the interior. The building contains a meeting room, a kitchen and a day room with a computer, couches and reference materials. There are showers available and a washer and dryer, because the law requires that EMTs (emergency medical technicians) and EMRs (emergency medical responders) not take home traces of blood or other bodily fluids.

The Lions Club is deservedly proud of its new, state-of-the-art ambulance, which was purchased four years ago from funds saved by the Lions Club for ten years. It has four-wheel drive, which is rare for ambulances but very useful in the Northwest Corner. The interior was custom designed to fit their needs and is meticulously arranged, with a designated space for every piece of equipment. There is an onboard GPS, and a hydraulic lift on the stretcher. The town provides fuel, but the Lions Club pays for everything else, including medical supplies and training.

The costs of running the ambulance service are significant. The stretcher alone cost $12,000, and the power lift, which the Auxiliary for Community Health paid for, a whopping $22,000. The “jump kit” that each first responder must keep within reach at all times costs $450. The Lions Club’s annual appeal covers the cost of running the ambulance (funds for the Lions Club itself, such as money raised at the spring pancake breakfast, are kept separate). As Deputy Chief Sandy Evans says, “People in town are very kind to us.”

“People often confuse us with the fire department,” Evans notes, which is not surprising. Both organizations are non-billing and all volunteer, and they have overlapping memberships. For example, Fire Chief Matt Ludwig is also secretary for the ambulance service, and Jon Barbagallo is both a firefighter and an EMT and the public information officer for both organizations. The fire department and the ambulance have quarterly breakfast meetings to discuss mutual concerns, such as power outages, downed wires and automobile accidents.

Currently, the Lions Club Ambulance has 15 EMTs, 10 EMRs and 17 drivers. Not all are able to do a full shift, and most EMTs also double as drivers. There are three people on shift every hour, every day of the week. Shifts used to be 12 hours long. They can be shorter now, but this inevitably leads to “difficult, complicated schedules,” Evans says. “This summer we were plagued with vacations.”

It is a cause for concern that the corps is aging, and the Lions Club is always looking for new volunteers. Happily, the spirit to join the ambulance service seems to run in families. The Hester family has four members, from two generations, in the ambulance service now—John, Samuel, Kaelin and Aileen—and Bill and Gerry Brodnitzki are both part of the squad.

Evans started as a driver 23 years ago and then moved on to become an EMT. “Once you start with it, it’s hard to walk away,” she says. “There is such a need in town. It’s a comfort to people to know that if they need help, someone they know will show up.”