Ambulance EMS: Elli Nelson

ROYAL CITY - Elli Nelson moved to the Royal Slope with her family in 1992 and has been a volunteer with the Grant County Fire Districts Nos. 10/11 ambulance ever since.

Nelson has been the assistant fire chief in charge of EMS for about the last 13 years. She has been either EMS chief or training officer or both since 1992.

Nelson brought a lot of experience with her. She joined the Middleton, Idaho quick response unit (QRU) in 1976.

"I was just looking for a first aid course," she said. "Several months before, my oldest son had fallen and cut his head. I did not know if it was serious or not.

"I was offered the EMT training if I would volunteer with the QRU for two years. The QRU was a non-transporting aid car, able to get to the scene ahead of the paramedic ambulance in our rural area. I've stayed with it for 35 years now because it is such a necessary service."

Nelson was the president of the Middleton QRU for the last 12 years she was in Idaho. She also worked part-time for 13 years with the Canyon County, Idaho paramedic ambulance.

"They were a 5,000 call-per-year agency," she said. "You just don't get that volume of experience volunteering with a rural agency."

According to Nelson, the biggest change in emergency medicine has been the advent of the paramedics. They started showing up nationwide in the mid-1970s and in Moses Lake about 1994.

Nelson served on the Washington Governor's Steering Committee for EMS and Trauma Systems from 1994 through 2004. She was re-appointed and started a fresh 2-year term in January of 2011.

"The steering committee makes the rules the ambulance services in the whole state have to put up with," Nelson said. "I represent the rural volunteers and their agencies.

"I can't take all the credit, but back in the 1990s they wanted to make EMTs pay $110 for their license. I got them to realize that 80 percent of the EMTs in the state were unpaid volunteers. To make them pay for the privilege of volunteering would destroy rural emergency medicine."

According to Nelson, it is a challenge to get city folks to understand the logistics of time and distance the rural areas face to get the EMTs to the patient.

"It's all about patient care, and what is of value to the patient," she said.

Nelson's worst memory was a call that happened soon after she volunteered. A drunk driver running from police turned off his headlights and crossed the freeway trying to exit on an on-ramp. He hit car occupied by a man and his young stepson head-on.

"What upset me was that we had no way to shield the boy from the scene as we tried and failed to save the life of his stepfather," Nelson said.

Elli's memory of doing the most good is also from Idaho. A large SUV hit a small car.

"We were the third ambulance on the scene and waited while the last patient was extricated from the wreck," Nelson said. "A baby was in the small car, properly secured in an infant protective car seat.

"The baby seemed just fine. They were going to send it home from the accident scene with relatives.

"It must have been inspiration. Just as we started to move, I made them stop the ambulance and I got the baby on board. Before we had made it the four miles to the hospital, the baby started showing symptoms of a severe head injury. The doctors said that if the child had gone home with the family, it probably would have gone to sleep and never awakened."

According to Nelson, the greatest need for districts 10 and 11 is more volunteers - firefighters and EMTs. Also needed is passage of the EMS levy and the fire services levy.

"If there was one thing I would like to help the community to understand it would be the importance of calling 9-1-1 early," Nelson said. "In the event of a stroke or heart attack or a serious injury, time is your enemy. Delay in calling 9-1-1 diminishes the chances of survival. We would rather respond and not be needed than to be called too late to help."