THANK YOU

Last year we asked you to support our endowment at the Adirondack Foundation. Your answer—you gave us more than ever–our largest fundraiser to date. We hope that soon this fund will generate enough revenue to provide health benefits for our EMTs and Paramedics. But right now, we’re asking you to help us with something equally important, that might literally save our necks.

Four years ago, one of our paramedics broke his back while pulling a loaded stretcher out of the ambulance. He never returned to work. Through your giving we were able to purchase a Power Lifter, which raises a patient into or out of the ambulance without us raising a finger. Since we installed it in our ambulance 756, our backs have been great. Thank you.

We have a new ambulance ordered, 757, a four-wheel drive Mercedes Sprinter, due at year’s end. It will become our primary duty ambulance this winter. We’d like to install a Power Lifter into this ambulance as well, but at $25,000, it’s beyond our budget.

We work hard every day to keep ourselves ready to help you. We are well-equipped and well-trained, we love what we do, but at times our job can be uniquely demanding—quiet hours waiting, followed by intense physical and emotional stress. Most on the job injuries occur while lifting and carrying patients, mostly when moving them out of the ambulance. $25,000 is an enormous amount of money for a piece of equipment, but it’s still less than the cost of a career ending injury.

We hope you never end up on one of our stretchers, but if you do, we guarantee you’ll be glad you gave. Please give again to the Save Our Backs Fund. Thank You.

Joe Connelly, Director.