Nash County EMS Executive Director Brian Brantley and Nash County EMS Supervisor and Training Coordinator Scott Strufe were the special guests and featured speakers at the regular meeting of the Rotary Club of Rocky Mount held March 10 at the Gateway Convention Centre. Club President George Ramey presided while Rotarian and American Red Cross Reginal Director Lynwood Roberson provided the introductions.

Brantley, a graduate of Southern Nash High School and East Carolina University, talked about Nash County Emergency Services various areas of responsibility, including fire and rescue, communications and emergency management. He said North Carolina wants emergency-related communications such as requests for assistance to come through on a county rather than individual municipality basis. That would reduce input to North Carolina's 100 counties as well as the Cherokee Indian reservation.

Contributed photo (ENLARGE)

From left, Nash County EMS Supervisor and Training Coordinator Scott Strufe, Rotarian Joe Nelson, Nash County EMS Executive Director Brian Brantley, Rotarians Clif Barnes and Ward Sutton.

The organization takes responsibility for 911 calls. Last year, there were some 289,000 dials in that translated to more than 60,000 actual calls. With the merger of the former operations of Stoney Creek Volunteer and Mount Pleasant, Nash EMS has become the consolidated system for the county. Due to its staffing, training and equipment, Nash EMS holds a distinction of being one of 13 model EMS systems in the state.

Scott Strufe, a certified paramedic, described Nash EMS's ambulance as mobile hospital emergency rooms containing sophisticated medical equipment that enable direct communication with area hospitals and provide technicians with the information, in some cases, to divert to another facility such as ECU or WakeMed where immediate and specialized treatment is needed in life- threatening situations.

He went on to say that Nash EMS works in many areas of health beyond what are traditionally viewed as emergency services. In primary health areas, the service provides blood pressure check and other health assessments. They are active in non-emergency transportation for bed-ridden patients, hospice, hospital discharges and doctor visits.

For these uses, less sophisticated vehicles are used so ambulances are available for emergency work.

Their community

education efforts include teen driving education, booths at festivals and health fairs as well as presentations at churches and civic clubs. The mission of Nash EMS is to provide real emergency care on the scene and on the way to the hospital.

The next Rocky Mount Rotary Club meeting will be held at 1 p.m. Monday at the Gateway Convention Centre.

ECU Pirates head baseball coach and Rocky Mount native Billy Godwin will be the speaker.