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Show MSL Meeds Trained Ambulance Workers B) MARK I). MICKELSEN NORTH SALT LAKE -North Sal, Lake City Manager Collin Wood says he's running t of trained ambulance workers who can cover city emergencies during the daytime. day-time. 1 MR. WOOD, speaking before be-fore city council members last week, said the city is down to 13 certified emergency medical medic-al technicians (EMT) many ot which also work for the city m some other capacity. One of the problems, he said, is that when a member of the city crews signs up for ambulance duty, and is called away during a work day, projects pro-jects scheduled to be completed com-pleted must be postponed W'hile he responds. IN ONE instance, Wood told council members, an employee em-ployee was signing up for day duty 52 percent of the time. Any time someone asked him to go out of the city on an errand, Wood said the man refused, re-fused, saying he was on call and couldn't leave the city building. While the city manager said he and the fire chief are working work-ing on the problem, he recommended recom-mended that the city recruit EMT's who can handle daytime day-time duty. "WE'RE RELYING solely on off-street individuals who are asking the city what we have in the way of work, and that's not working very well," Wood said. "We obviously don't want to curtail or cut that service off arbitrarily," said Mayor Pro-tern Pro-tern John Graves. "Our concern con-cern would be that we don't abandon our responsibility." ACCORDING to Fire Chief Earl Littlewood, four county EMT's and two city EMT's are able to respond to emergencies during the day. Council members said they would like to see a full compliment compli-ment of about 35 EMT's available avail-able for work. WOOD SAID he would like to see some advertising for ambulance workers, a pian greeted with some skepticism by members of the fire department. depart-ment. One worker said the department depart-ment attempted to recruit some daytime help several years ago, but had very little luck. Most of th applicants were from out of town, he told councilmen. and cannot meet training schedules. THE CITY manager reiterated reiter-ated that future EMT's will have to be able to respond to calls during the daytime. The city council supported the concept. |