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EMS director updates board about first year on the job

News Photo by Julie Goldberg The Alcona County Board of Commissioners received its yearly audit report from Ken Talsma of Anderson, Tackman, & Company, PLC. during Wednesday’s meeting. Talsma said financially, the county is looking stable.

HARRISVILLE — Alcona County EMS Director Scott Rice provided a yearly update of the EMS department to the Alcona County Board of Commissioners on Wednesday.

Rice has been the EMS director for a year and provided a list of accomplishments throughout the past year to the commissioners. He said two new ambulances, new cardiac monitors, and new uniforms were purchased.

“We upgraded a lot of things,” Rice said. “We made some changes to equipment and made some improvements of some worn out, old equipment that we didn’t need anymore or just wasn’t very useful.”

Rice said the computers were seven years old and could not be upgraded anymore. He said the software needed to do necessary things couldn’t be done anymore.

Rice said new uniforms were needed because everyone was wearing what they wanted to wear and didn’t match.

“The biggest thing is that we reduced our maintenance bill by two-thirds,” Rice said. “The last six months I was here, we spent over $22,000 in repairs and I think we’re somewhere between $8,000 and $9,000 so far this year.”

Cardiac monitors are in service in all trucks, in the EMS building’s classroom, and in the ambulance station. Rice said the cardiac monitors were under a national recall and needed to be replaced.

Rice said in the fall there is going to be a first responder training class. People can renew their licenses and new students can receive their licenses after getting the training and credits.

Board Chair Craig Johnston said the number of first responders in the townships is dwindling because training is either far away or hard to attend and he said it’s going to be nice to have a training class in the county this fall.

Julie Goldberg can be reached via email at jgoldberg@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5688.

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