Before 8a.m. several days a week, Janice Gilsdorf leaves her life as a wife and mom. From then until 5p.m., she joins a team of paramedics on standby to deliver emergency care to patients during those critical moments when every second counts. She does it for free, as a volunteer with the Frederick County Fire and Rescue Service.
“Nothing compares to it,” said Gilsdorf. “I can actually go home and my husband can say “how many lives did you save,” and I can actually say, I have an answer.”
But volunteers like Gilsdorf are gradually becoming scarce in fire departments across the country, according to local and national experts. Researchers at North Dakota State University have noticed a 10 percent decline in the number of volunteer firefighters since the 1980’s, leaving many rural and suburban fire services stretched to the limit. In Frederick County, volunteer officials say the drop in the number of volunteers is accompanied by a sharp increase in calls for service. The trend concerns Doug Orner, director of volunteer services for the Frederick County Volunteer Fire and Rescue Association.
“We don’t have enough volunteers,” Orner said. “People just don’t have the time to put into it like they used to. My personal company, when I first joined, if we ran 100 calls per year, we thought we were doing a lot. This past year, I think we went over 700 which is a significant increase for my small town.”
Orner said the vast majority of the calls are for ambulances. All but three of the ambulance companies are staffed all the time by a small number of career paramedics, but they depend on volunteer support to handle Frederick County’s emergencies. Orner said he worries the lack of volunteer support could cause serious problems in the face of a major disaster.
“The ambulances are tied up on the scene, the personnel are tied up on the scene, and while we may have a unit sitting there, we may not have a trained person there to run the ambulance.”
Researchers say a major disaster in areas with a shortage of volunteers could prove to be devastating.
“Regardless of the scale of an event, its origin is local and it typically is managed at the local level,” said Daniel Barnett, a researcher at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “So if you combine that reality with what we’re talking about here, that’s particularly concerning.”
But laws and regulations don’t make it easy for a volunteer to suit up. In Frederick County, a volunteer could easily rack up 200 hours of training in basic firefighting, emergency medical technician training, haz-mat training, and CPR just to become a well-versed volunteer, Orner said. The sheer amount of training time that’s required to volunteer could be a key contributor to the lack of new recruits, according to Jessica Jensen who researches fire services at North Dakota State University.
“Career firefighters are going to be able to get that type of training. They’re seeking it as a profession, or within the course of their daily job,” Jensen said. “The volunteer firefighter who is in many cases expected to do the same training—they’re having to take time off of work.”
To combat the decline in volunteers, Orner said Frederick County has recently received a recruitment grant, and aims to use the funds to recruit 100 new volunteer firefighters each year. The county also offers incentive programs to help attract volunteers to the fire service. Free college-level training courses and a small retirement plan are just some of the perks that are offered to volunteers in Frederick County. Also, Orner said tuition reimbursements, which had been removed from the benefit list by budget cuts, may be returning soon. But, Emily Mills, a stay-at-home mom by day, said the material perks are only part of the reason she volunteers.
“It gives me an opportunity to get out and give back to the community,” Mills said. “Meet some new people and really feel like I’m doing something valuable with my skill set.”
Orner said as time goes on, he expects career firefighters and EMTs to play a bigger role in Frederick County emergency service. But, he said the need for volunteers will never go away.
“There’s just no way that in this county or particularly in surrounding counties that we’ll be able to do away with volunteers,” Orner said. “Unfortunately, we will probably have to rely more and more on paid personnel who are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. But they’ll still need the volunteers to help fundraising efforts to help keep the costs down as much as they can.”