Sheldon, Iowa — If it seems as though you’ve seen SCAT ambulances out and about more in recent months, there’s a reason for that.
As 2020 wore on, the Sheldon Community Ambulance Team has seen their volume of calls increase dramatically. According to SCAT Director Kevin Miller, at this time in 2019 SCAT had answered 593 calls. During the same period this year they have answered 687 calls. That’s an increase of nearly 16-percent. He says there was a lull in calls this spring when COVID first came out, then an uptick beginning in May, with a spike that started in September. In fact, Miller says that, as of Friday morning, SCAT has answered 75 calls this month alone, compared to 53 calls during the entire month of November, 2019. That’s a 41.5% increase in call volume.
(As above) “It seems like it all started in around September. We have seen upticks in calls…we have seen spikes in our call volumes and we are doing the best that we can and we are responding to all of those calls.”
Miller says SCAT is comprised of a good team of people, all of whom are stepping up to the plate to handle this high volume of calls. Even so, he says SCAT leadership has taken steps to make sure the volunteers aren’t getting burned out.
(As above) ” We constantly have been talking and evaluating everyone’s mental health to insure that everyone isn’t getting burned out and we just do our due diligence, as leadership, to make sure that our team is performing at their best.”
During the best of times, recruiting volunteers can be a challenge and this year has made it more so, but Miller says the visibility gained by the sheer volume of calls has helped.
(As above) “I do think that, logistically, it has been difficult to recruit because we aren’t able to do some of our recruiting tactics. But we have run some campaigns via media, also reaching out to the public and we definitely can see that the public is aware of how much we are out there and so we are getting some recruits, just by word of mouth, which is nice.”
He says there are some things that you and I can do to help ease the strain on the SCAT team.
(As above) “I think it’s really important just to follow the CDC guidelines, along with the Iowa Department of Public Health guidelines. It is very important that everyone maintains their social distance, wears a mask when applicable and, overall, just supports their local EMS.”
The Sheldon Community Ambulance Team is a volunteer EMS squad the serves the City of Sheldon, as well as the surrounding rural area and part of the city of Archer, 24-hours a day, 7-days a week, and operate a fleet of three fully-equipped emergency ambulances.
