Emergency vehicles from Plains and other communities converged at the old airport in Plains Saturday afternoon, Jan. 29, for defensive driving exercises. Ambulances, search and rescue trucks, brush trucks and one old yellow fire engine tore up and down the cracked and weathered tarmac, negotiating their way through bright orange traffic cones and getting a feel for what their vehicles can and cannot do.

The event was organized by Nick Lawyer, who coordinates Plains and Polson community ambulances, not only as a way to get volunteers comfortable behind the wheel of often-challenging emergency vehicles, but as a way to comply with federal mandates as well. FEMA has requested that rural emergency agencies train up their responders.

“We want to be very careful about how we respond to accidents and 911 calls,” Lawyer said. “The training we did on Saturday teaches us about how to respond on emergency mode, doing the things that we do, while doing those things safely and carefully so we don’t put anybody in danger.”

According to Lawyer, the primary focus for the event was safety, but it has also been requested of the agencies by the government.

Lawyer worked with driving instructor Mike Cullen from Ronan to teach the volunteers about safe driving techniques. The group started out by viewing videos on safe driving, as well as testimonials from emergency workers who have been involved in crashes with their emergency vehicles. The group also talked about the physics of car crashes and what to expect when arriving on a scene.

To organize the event, Lawyer contacted Plains resident and airport manager Randy Garrison to secure the old runway. He also worked with Lee Mercier and John Holland to secure facilities and garner participation. From there, Lawyer called up area emergency organizations to participate in the exercises. Ambulance workers from Ronan and Bighorn joined Plains Ambulance and Plains-Paradise Rural Fire District for Saturday’s exercises.

Kathy Miller, Plains resident and member of the Plains Ambulance Board of Directors, sees another positive to the driving exercises. Regulations that previously restricted drivers of ambulances to be certified EMTs have been lifted, which now allows for laypeople to help with emergency crews simply by learning to drive emergency vehicles. Miller has been advocating for this since she joined the board in 2000, which put her in an interesting situation on Saturday.

“Since they changed the rules and since I opened my big mouth, I was more than willing to hop in the driver’s seat,” Miller said.

Miller is optimistic that this change will free up certified EMTs to focus on emergency medical care and will help support crews that are spread thin.

“Having an extra hand can’t hurt,” Miller said.

One of the lessons Lawyer relayed to volunteers had to do with motorists not yielding the right of way to emergency vehicles.

“We still have people who forget, or who are on their cell phone, or their radio is too loud, and they don’t hear us or see us, so we need to know how to deal with that individual,” Lawyer said. “If folks could do one thing across the community, it’s to slow down, come to a stop, pull to the right and yield the right of way.”

Lawyer felt that the exercises went a long way in getting volunteers familiar with their vehicles and possibly opened doors for others to come out and volunteer.

 “The goal is to increase our safety throughout the community and still be able to know and understand what our vehicles are capable of, or more importantly, what they’re not capable of,” Lawyer said. “We’re totally willing to take people as lay responders and we’ll train them up over time.”