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N.C. County`s Rescue Squad to Celebrate 50th Anniversary

Charlie Hall

July 29--BAYBORO -- The Pamlico County Rescue Squad celebrates its 50th year of operations on Saturday, with a community event from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the station, 911 Grace Daniels Road in Bayboro.

Capt. T.W. Harris said a festival-style celebration is planned, with live entertainment, product vendors, activities for children and food.

Live music is planned by the popular Oriental band Billy Holton and the Soul Shakers from noon to 3 p.m.

"We've got ambulances on display, old equipment on display, bounce houses for children, all kinds of things for everybody," Harris said.

The squad has five ambulances and a crash truck.

Harris said the squad has not found a lot of early written history other than stories from local seniors.

But, he said the Pamlico squad is unique, in that it covers 360 square miles.

"We are the only county in North Carolina that has just one EMS provider, out of all 100 counties," he said. "Everyone else has more than one agency in their county. We are the only shop in town."

Last year, the squad made 1,780 calls to provide assistance.

Currently, the squad has 11 paid members and 15 volunteers, based in Bayboro.

The squad has worked diligently over the years, he said, to provide better medical service for citizens through individual and group training.

"We are paramedic (certified)," he said. The squad achieved that on Dec. 7, 2011, upgrading the squad from intermediate response, allowing them to administer drugs at the scene and en route to hospitals.

"We had to get a lot of new medications, from cardiac to respiratory, which gave us the ability to actually sedate someone," he said. "Before that we were calling Craven for mutual aid, and Bridgeton or Rescue 20 out of James City, or the hospital staff (CarolinaEast Medical Center) was actually coming down to meet us."

That, he said, put a lot of lag time into a patient receiving treatment.

The squad also maintains an ambulance and staff at the Station 19 volunteer fire department outside of Oriental five days a week, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Harris said there is also a network of volunteer First Responders in Oriental and elsewhere in the county.

"They are responding from fire stations," he said. "Some are EMTs, some are Intermediate EMT and there are a couple of paramedics running first responder."

For more information, call 745-3200.

Charlie Hall can be reached at 252-635-5667 or 252-259-7585, charlie.hall@newbernsj.com, on Twitter @CharlieHallNBSJ

Copyright 2016 - Sun Journal, New Bern, N.C.

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