ROYAL CITY - Laura Roecks is in her seventh year as a volunteer with Grant County Fire Districts Nos. 10/11 as an Advanced EMT. Roecks and her husband Dale joined the fire district together. 

"We just wanted to give something back to the community," she said. 

Roecks later found an EMT course and enjoyed it. The jump from EMT basic to EMT advanced was a huge leap.

 "I learned how much I didn't know," she said.

There was much more anatomy in the advanced training. As an example, Roecks learned how to recognize and treat shock as an EMT basic. The EMT advanced course taught her why and how the body is going into shock.

"The body works right in such a narrow range of things like breathing, pH balance, and temperature," she said.

Roecks is a member of the rope rescue team. It is a group of specialists who give the district added rescue capability.

"The rope team was put together because we have the landscape and some structures that occasionally leave us with no other means of access to reach an injured person than from above, rappelling down to the patient," Roecks said.

One of the more interesting things Roecks has seen is a driver-less car at the site of a crash. Or so it seemed.

"All the occupants were in the back seat. No one was even in the front seat, let alone driving," she said. "That equals the classic call to a bar shooting to find that all the staff and clientele were in the restroom when the incident occurred. All 23 people were inside a one-stall commode so there were no witnesses to the altercation."

According to Roecks, the district needs more people, both firefighters and EMTs. The service area is vast, and the public servants are few.

"It gets too interesting and time-consuming to drive from home in the east end of the district to Wanapum Village to respond to a call," she said.

  "Every call is unique," she added. "The worst ones are when a child is hurt."

"We have good training," she said. "We have good equipment. We need more people, preferably younger than me, at all levels of both fire districts."

Roecks believes it would help if local employers could figure out a way to let employees respond to fire and ambulance calls during the day. That's when it is most difficult to muster a crew.  

According to Roecks, Grant County Fire District No. 5 and Quincy have eliminated or are eliminating their ambulance service. She laments the loss because her district works closely with those agencies. 

"Quincy and Grant 5 have been our source of ALS (Advanced Life Support) when we get the kind of a call that needs paramedics," she said.

Roecks noted the district has a paid fire chief and one mechanic who are also firefighters and EMTs. There is a part-time secretary who also volunteers as an advanced EMT. Everyone else is a volunteer. 

"All we need from the community is a continuation of the current EMS tax levy," she said. "With our volunteers we have an emergency medical system that works."

Roecks and her husband Dale are hay growers on the east end of the Royal Slope.