Please join the Fishers Island community in congratulating Chris and Kathy Dollar as the newest members of the Fire Department’s EMT Squad.
Over the last several months Chris and Kathy not only successfully completed their EMT training, but also have taken and passed the boards for both National and New York State Certification.
This addition of two EMTs has already had a major impact on the Fishers Island Fire Department’s EMT squad. As Paul Giles pointed out, “A normal department may not think much of getting two new EMTs however, as we only had 8 active EMTs on the squad, the addition of two more is very exciting. Before the addition of Chris and Kathy we would stand duty every third week for 7 days 24 hours a day. We still have duty every 3 weeks but this has allowed for a rotating schedule so one person gets relieved of Sunday duty on each rotation.”
The Department and the entire EMT squad would like to publicly thank Henry McCance for his kind generosity. His gift enabled the funding of the online course for the Dollars and included an intense one week EMT hands-on training program in Idaho this summer.
Our volunteer Emergency Medical Service EMTs are all island residents. When their pagers go off they drop everything and leave their jobs as teachers, property and store managers, club employees, doctor’s office staff, and contractors. Since January through September 2015 they have answered 49 ambulance calls and made 41 Sea Stretcher runs to Lawrence Memorial Hospital. Next time you see them, please thank EMS Captain Carol Giles, EMS Assistant Division Chief Tracy Brock, and EMTs Gail Cypherd, Chris Dollar, Kathy Dollar, Jamie Doucette, Tawnya Eastman, Paul Giles, Bruce Hubert, and Kapri Thomas.
Join the EMT Squad
With the 2 additional members that still leaves the squad with only 10 total EMTs to respond to all emergency calls 24/7 every day of the year – all while attending monthly training drills to maintain certification. As Carol Giles mentioned, “We are a very thin skeleton crew that make it work to cover all of these volunteer hours for the Fishers Island community because of our dedication to the island residents, our professionalism, and our comradery to work as a team.”
Please consider joining this amazing and accomplished group. You will learn much while making lasting friendships and providing a most valuable service to this community!
