Selflessly leading, selflessly serving

Chris Roberts started training for the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) world when he was in high school. In fact, the Winterset native even responded to a few calls with Madison County Ambulance with a pager, leaving his classmates in his senior year of high school behind to help someone who needed it.

Jump forward a few years and Roberts has now worked since July 1 as the EMS Manager at Adair County Health System, a 30-minute jaunt west of his hometown.

Roberts is the November subject of the “People of Adair County” story series that prints the first week of each month in the Adair County Free Press and Fontanelle Observer.

Roberts was the facilitator of a drill that occurred in Greenfield Oct. 26 where firefighters, EMS personnel and RN exempt nurses came together to practice extrication and a helicopter transport, among other scenarios they’ll need when emergencies really come about.

Roberts says he began thinking about coming to Adair County when he heard of staffing struggles that were happening here and heard that an EMS Manager was going to be hired.

“I took the leap of applying for it,” Roberts said. “I was lucky enough to be accepted as the EMS Manager and it’s been a great opportunity.”

Like most emergency personnel will say, Roberts has always wanted to “help people.” While he didn’t always see it as a career opportunity and would get to that later, EMS was always one of his foremost interests.

Roberts admits there have been bumps along the road at Adair County Ambulance before he arrived on the scene and thereafter, but things have taken a much more hopeful turn in recent months. He says these struggles aren’t unique to Adair County. They’re seen at many rural hospitals. Roberts credits those who have gone before him as having laid the groundwork needed for the agency to be successful.

“The biggest problem in EMS is recruiting new candidates and retention of your current ones. I don’t think it’s unique to Adair County, it’s a rural healthcare deal. Trying to find EMTs and Paramedics both are kind of difficult,” Roberts said. “As far as I’m aware, we have the bulk of the EMTs that are in the Greenfield area serving on the ambulance there. It’s not like we have a bunch out there [who aren’t serving with us], I just don’t think there are a lot out there.”

Roberts teaches courses on a part-time basis for Southwestern Community College in Creston but for two years while he still worked in Winterset, Roberts also taught an EMT class for high school students. He says SWCC is currently exploring the logistics and need for implementing a similar course in the near future.

Roberts and his staff at Adair County Ambulance are also free to go give presentations at area high schools about what it’s like to work in EMS.

What is it like for Roberts on a daily basis? Roberts describes his position as a “working manager,” so he works a 12-hour shift that begins at 7 a.m. working in the hospital emergency department and responding to ambulance calls as part of a crew. When those 12 hours are up, Roberts goes on-call for the ambulance, which he says gives him a lot of needed experience as he leads the rest of the staff.

“I don’t feel comfortable asking my crew to do anything I’m not comfortable to do myself. It keeps me in the game as well so I know the struggles they’re facing. If it’s a frequent patient we’re running into, I’m probably going to run into that as well and that goes a long way with the staff, too,” Roberts said. “I do anywhere from two to three of those 24-hour shifts a week.”

Roberts says staffing continues to be an issue, though things are progressing nicely. Right now, the ambulance service, which is owned by Adair County Health System, has one Paramedic and two EMT positions open. Another part-time EMT position is also open.

Roberts is happy to report that the ambulance has never had to drop below optimum level, which is the Advanced Life Support level since he took over. Contingency plans that are in place make it so there is always a Paramedic available in the county.

Also, an RN Exempt class that has been in place here for many years has been restructured so that nurses who can also run EMS calls. Those four nurses currently on the crew are being trained even more specifically for the variables the EMS environment will throw at them.

“The RN exempt functions up to a Paramedic level and they’re essentially a Paramedic with a nurse’s training. That’s good, and it’s a band-aid fix for us, but I didn’t think it was fair to some of our nurses on the roster to not have all the education [they could have],” Roberts said. “That’s where the eight-hour training we did recently comes in. We got them some of the extrication experience and have been holding class for them every Wednesday for about four hours to get them a little more knowledge of what they’d be doing EMS wise. Nurses are skilled and educated in patient assessments and skills, they just don’t necessarily know how to do it in our world or what is different about our world. That training was to highlight for them that they might be doing this in a ditch versus a controlled hospital environment.”

Roberts is excited about community outreach initiatives Adair County Ambulance is doing and hopes things continue progressing positively under his watch and the dedication of all involved.

“If people see us out in the community in the ambulance, don’t be afraid to say hi,” Roberts said. “If kids want to look around in the back of the ambulance if we’re fueling up at Casey’s, we’d be happy to show them around.”