Air Evac Life Team Air Ambulance came to Carroll County this past Saturday as part of the Carrollton/North Carrollton Volunteer Fire Department’s continuing education and training. The Air Evac Life Team Ambulance landed at J.Z. George High School football field that afternoon. The training included hands on demonstrations at the landing location and classroom instruction inside the CNCVFD Training Room at the fire station in North Carrollton with Instructor Chad Rushing, Flight Paramedic NR-P, FP-C at Air Evac Life Team. CNCVFD Firefighter Robert Sims took the role of the patient as crew members demonstrated how they load a patient into the helicopter for transport. CNCVFD Chief Andy Vining planned the training event and has been working with Air Evac to get the training for the responders. There were also firemen from Black Hawk Fire Volunteer Department in attendance along with family members of the responders. After the training at the J.Z. George Field, the instructional classes resumed at the fire station with Rushing. Since the coverage area of the CNCVFD is in the rural county of Carroll, this preparation in case of emergency services is vital. Carroll County is one of the counties in this state that doesn’t have a hospital, therefore air medical transportation is essential. The CNCVFD has been having training and preparations for responding to emergencies of many different types that they could be subject to respond to. North Carrollton Alderman Eddie Carpenter who serves as CNCVFD Chaplain said, “I would like to thank Chad Rushing and the rest of the crew for an awesome job. They were extremely professional and treated us with great respect.”
The goal was to provide air medical transportation and ensure access to emergency health care for their remote community in the Missouri Ozark region when Air Evac Life Team was established by a group of citizens in West Plains, Mo in 1985. With air ambulances mostly based in metropolitan areas at the time when they started more than 30 years ago, the company founders believed that the people who needed air medical transport the most were those living in rural areas. This coordination and training that was held Saturday in North Carrollton was an example of how vital it is to rural communities that has to travel a distance to a hospital. Air Evac has more than 130 bases across 15 states. Air Evac Life Team is part of Air Medical Group Holdings, the world's largest air ambulance service. CNCVFD Chief Andy Vining said “we thoroughly enjoyed the class Saturday by Air Evac Life team taught by Chad Rushing. We look forward to further training in the future.
”The CNCVFD meets every Thursday at 6 p.m. at the fire station in North Carrollton these meetings includes training. Along with those regular meetings there are exercises and classroom lectures such as the Air-Vac Training that is conducted periodically. The CNCVFD welcomes the public to attend the meetings and training.
