WARREN COUNTY – After decades of operating solely on volunteers, the Northern Warren Fire Dept. now has some part time EMS certified staff. It’s been a dream close to 80 years in the making.
“Our runs for service are increasing,” EMS Captian Rudy Catlado said.
The department is a small one just outside Norwalk. For years their calls for service were far and few between. But according to Captain Cataldo, they’ve seen a spike recently.
“So far we are almost 50 calls ahead of last year.”
And that’s served as incentive to get part-time employees on hand and ready for emergencies.
“Our response times have decreased drastically. We had a call and we were out the door in 6 seconds as opposed to getting dressed, coming down here and out the door in 10 minutes, so it’s working.”
Captain Cataldo says the new part timers are paid on the money that’s coming in from their 911 runs.
The staffing increase has also freed up resources at neighboring departments.
“Before we had to rely on our surrounding communities to come in and help us with an ambulance if we couldn’t supply one, but what we were also doing was taking an ambulance out of their community.”
Captain Cataldo says the change is already benefiting both the community and his department. And it’s only been in place a month.
“It’s joy really every single day that I see a run go out and that I know people are down here ready to take that run. I still get goosebumps thinking about us having people down here with the ability to do that.”
The station hopes to add more part-time employees to their station by the end of the year. Currently, they have paid staff three days a week. Their goal is to have at least two EMS certified employees at the station Monday-Friday during the day.
