Rob:  Ambulance service in parts of rural Oklahoma is in critical condition.  Since the year 2000, fifty different ambulance services have closed, leaving thousands without timely or dependable emergency care.  We first told you of this crisis over a year ago.  Since then, some crucial steps have been taken; but as our Brian Bendele explains, the battle to keep ambulance services available in rural Oklahoma remains challenging.
Brian:  Last year we reported on the devastating story of EMT, Janez Case, how one paramedic lost her life in a tragic ambulance crash.
Todd Baughman:  They hit an icy patch on the way to the hospital.  When it went off in the ditch, it hit nose first tuned back down the highway, caught a rock on this side, rolled up onto the left side, slid and then flipped completely over and back onto its wheels, facing the highway.
Brian:  Clayton had just received a new ambulance, and was hopeful to find a replacement technician, but unfortunately one year later that has not been the case.
Bob Hawley:  They’ve made several attempts to train and equip another ambulance, and they’ve been unsuccessful to do that.
Brian:  Bob Hawley is the EMS director for LeFlore County, and because they are the closest EMS service to Clayton, they are required by law to cover the area. 
Hawley:  The problem we’re running into is that we’re running a significant number of calls into the northern Push County area, and we’re taking away from not only our patients but our taxpayers.  Last year for example, we ran down there 108 times; and out of that 108 times, there were 12 calls that we missed in our own county, because we were out serving Pushmataha County.
Brian:  And it’s, here, over thirty miles away in Talihina where the closest responder is located, and response time to the victim could be as long as thirty minutes, and to get back to the nearest hospital could take as long as an hour.
Troy Turner:  We do have a back up ambulance, and sometimes our backup ambulance runs just as much as our primary unit, if we’re gone.
Brian:  Troy Turner is one of six EMTs in Talihina, and says while he is concerned with covering a larger area, to him, it’s a matter of providing a service first.
Turner:  I don’t care if I would have to run fifty miles somewhere.  If a person needs help, and I’m here, I’m going to do it.  I’m going to do whatever it takes.
Brian:  Yet individuals with Troy’s passion are hard to come by; and while Medicare reimbursement now covers less than half the cost of an ambulance run, paramedic accreditation is expensive and recruitment is low, leaving much of the state without adequate service, and leaving educators with questions on how to sustain their programs.
We have certain processes within our own school to validate the people we’re testing.  
Andrea Pogue:  We do need more people in the pipeline; there is no doubt.  The healthcare workforce shortage is dramatically increasing as every year goes by, and we definitely want more people in the pipeline behind us.
Brian:  Andrea Pogue, of Pontotoc Technology Center, is just one of many from across the state attending the critical issues meeting at the State Department of CareerTech, discussing topics from recruitment to national accreditation. 
Eddie Manley:  The initiative is coming from our national registry the board of directors from the registry voted to have accreditation across the whole United States by 2012.
Phil Berkenbile:  They’re going to have to look at their program quality; they’re curriculum quality; their instructor training.  They’re going to have to upgrade that and be ready to provide more increased requirements for each teacher, and the class.
Brian:  Education that will directly affect students like Kenneth Dalton.
Kenneth Dalton:  The paramedic classes are very long, strenuous, constant studying.  You pretty much give up your whole life for the year and a half that you’re in a paramedic class.
Brian:  And for Kenneth, it’s about helping others.
Dalton:  When I was younger, I had an incident where medics took care of me, impacted my life, and I feel like it would be nice to impact the life of others. 
Brian:  A sentiment truly depicting the type of individual needed all across the state.