This week was National EMS week, a week set aside every year since 1974 to celebrate EMS providers in the United States.
And what a year this has been for EMS providers, including those who work to save lives in the Riverhead Community.
EMS providers are the first medical contact with a patient and can immediately initiate treatment on scene to help care for the patient, whether it be someone is involved in a car accident, suffering a stroke or a heart attack, or a parent needing comforting when their child is sick.
EMS providers have received intensive training that enables them to make quick decisions in stressful situations, said Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Assistant Chief James Alfano.
Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps, founded in 1978, contracts with the Riverhead Ambulance District to provide emergency medical services in the district, which includes all areas of the town except the Wading River Fire District, where EMS services are provided by the Wading River Fire Department.
RVAC currently has 154 Volunteers and employees.
“It’s the highest number of volunteers we have seen in a long time,” Alfano said.
“Even in the midst of a global pandemic, applications for membership continue to flood in,” he said. “We are thankful not only for our members’ hard work and dedication, but also thankful for our community’s continuous outpouring of support during these unforeseen times,” Alfano said.
Riverhead’s EMS call volume continues to increase year after year. Ambulance calls have more than doubled over the past 20 years, according to data in the town’s comprehensive plan, adopted by the town board in 2003.
In 2019, RVAC answered a total of 4,524 calls. In 2020, call volume dropped slightly to 4,168, as there were fewer motor vehicle accidents during the COVID pandemic lockdown last spring. As of this week, RVAC has responded to 1,648 calls this year so far.
RVAC headquarters was built in 1989. According to the town’s 2003 comprehensive plan, it was “already too small to meet the current level of calls, which reached nearly 2,000 in 1999.”
The headquarters has three ambulance bays, staff rooms, and offices, but “needs at least one more bay, additional storage and office space, training classrooms, parking, and space for equipment and uniform cleaning, which are required under OSHA standards,” according to the town’s 2003 comprehensive plan.
The town board, which sits as the governing body of the ambulance district, has had numerous discussions over the years about expanding or replacing the ambulance district headquarters, but has not arrived at any solution.
Most recently, the board has discussed leasing the former Kmart building on Route 58 for use as a town office complex and tentative plans have been drawn that would include a new ambulance facility within that complex, according to Councilman Tim Hubbard. Discussions with the property owner are ongoing, Hubbard said this week.
Riverhead’s year-round population grew by about 20% between 2000 and 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The year-round population was 27,860 in 2000 and an estimated 33,460 in 2020. The results of the 2020 decennial census have not yet been published. A significant portion of that growth resulted from age-restricted (55-and-over) condominium developments, enlarging a demographic that increases demand for EMS services.
Total buildout population under the 2003 comprehensive plan would be between 40,000 and 42,000, according to the document adopted by the town board in 2003. But the plan did not include high-density residential development now permitted by the Railroad Avenue Urban Renewal Area Overlay District adopted by the town board earlier this year.
In addition to residential population growth in Riverhead Town, the big box store development on Route 58 boomed since the adoption of the 2003 comprehensive plan, which established the Destination Retail zoning use district for the Route 58 corridor.
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