Award-winning Lakeside rescue squad runs on volunteer power

Once while on an emergency call with the Lakeside Volunteer Rescue Squad, Andrew Inge demonstrated his belief in the power of laughter.

As he treated a man who had been preparing for a colonoscopy and had not had anything to eat or drink all, he told the man, “The good news is you’re not doing your colonoscopy and you can start drinking. The bad news is you’re probably having a heart attack.”

The man laughed, and the joke destressed him, Inge said.

The man later told the story as part of a special program by the hospital, recognizing the Lakeside Volunteer Rescue Squad for making time benchmarks when responding to heart attacks – just one recognition for a squad that has received many.

Another came recently, when LVRS won the Regional EMS Award for Outstanding EMS Agency from the Old Dominion Emergency Medical Services Alliance Inc.

ODEMSA recognized the squad for its 61 years of service and more than 19,000 volunteer hours in the past year. Recent public recognitions included resuscitating a runner at the Monument Avenue 10K and the Daily Points of Light Award one member received on behalf of President George H.W. Bush, as well as activity in the community (such as CPR training) and involvement in regional and state agencies.

'There for our community'
Henrico County still provides emergency care and transportation to the hospital for free, a surprising non-cost in a country in which ambulance rides can cost thousands, and even Medicare’s fixed rates range in the hundreds. The services are provided through the Division of Fire's EMS division and three volunteer rescue squads, including the Lakeside squad.

The roughly 50 volunteers who comprise LVRS work in hospitals, emergency management, and enforcement for the Virginia Department of Health Professions, to name a few.

Inge, who is the squad’s operations officer and has been its president and training officer, learned how to be a leader at LVRS. He began volunteering in August 2005, and typically spends 50 to 100 hours per month doing so, he estimated. Inge is certified as an EMT-Intermediate and can provide advanced life support.

For him, the most rewarding part of serving in the Lakeside Volunteer Rescue Squad is the sense of family that the squad provides and the ability to engage with other Lakeside residents.

“It’s partly the fact that we can make a difference in our community, in more than just EMS,” Inge said. “The people that we see on a regular basis are the people that need us for a 911 call. And that’s great and we appreciate those resources and making those connections with people, helping them out in their time of need, but we’re also there for our community, too.”

The squad works in the community in a variety of ways, such as hosting “touch-a-truck” events, during which children can explore ambulances, and by standing by at the Monument Avenue 10K and other events in case needed, Inge explained. The squad also patrols on Halloween to help keep trick-or-treaters safe.

LVRS relies upon donations and fundraisers to provide its services without charging for them, although Henrico County Division of Fire also helps. During Fiscal Year 2018-19, the three county volunteer rescue squads – Lakeside, Tuckahoe and Henrico – shared a total of $218,625 from Henrico Fire, and an additional $205,000 in “Four for Life” funding from the Commonwealth of Virginia that flows through the division’s budget. The same level of funding is provided in the current fiscal year, which began July 1.

In 2016, the Lakeside squad had expenses of just more than $380,000 but revenue of just $299,462 – all but about $17,000 of which came from donations and grants. (LVRS accepts donations online at lakesiderescue.org/donations.)

'Just helping people'
Lauren Shrader, another squad member, finds volunteering rewarding for the same reasons Inge does.

“[The most rewarding part of volunteering is] just helping people, and knowing that whether they realize it or appreciate it — I don’t care if they really appreciate it — that I did something to improve their lives,” Shrader said. "Even if it’s just being comforting and listening to them.”

Shrader has volunteered with the Lakeside squad since March 2018 and volunteered for two years with the Henrico Volunteer Rescue Squad before she joined the LVRS. Shrader began volunteering at the advice of a previous fire chief for whom she interned, as a way to gain more experience in her current field of emergency management. She volunteers about 40 to 50 hours a month.

Shrader is a driver and certified as an EMT-Basic. She also is chairman of the board and on the membership selection committee for LVRS.

Earlier this year, she went on a call that stuck with her. She and other Lakeside volunteers insisted a man go to the hospital with them. Henrico Police had pulled him over for driving erratically and called the squad when they noticed something was off. Shrader and the other on-duty volunteers agreed that something wasn’t quite right. Although the man initially resisted going to the hospital, the Lakeside volunteers convinced him to go and called in a stroke alert as a precaution.

“He somehow reached out to one of our officers who happened to be on the call with us, and it turns out he was having a massive stroke,” Shrader said. “If we had not persisted and just agreed to let him go…there was a chance he would have died. I don’t feel like we did much of anything; we just gave him a ride and convinced him to get checked out, which seems like nothing, but for him, that was the difference between life and death.”

Jennifer Seymour, a volunteer since 2012, built a family through the LVRS, relying on members as a support network and marrying a fellow volunteer. Seymour’s husband was a volunteer firefighter in Goochland who joined the Lakeside squad in 2012 to get experience with patient care, she said.

She has been the squad’s membership chair, training officer and supply and training coordinator. Seymour is trained as a paramedic who can act as the attendant-in-charge and is a driver. She used to have one of the highest numbers of hours, but dropped down to the minimum 36 hours a month for active members since having her child almost a year ago.

Squad members babysit each other’s children, make plans outside of the rescue squad and have holiday parties.

“You can build lifelong friendships from somewhere like Lakeside,” Seymour said. “Lakeside has been a really good place for me during some very rough times.”

Helping people is the best part of volunteering, Seymour said.

“You’re asking somebody to trust you that you just walked in their door, or it’s a sick kid and basically you’re asking a parent to hand over their kid to a stranger and that you’re going to take care of them, and they trust you to do that,” she said.

'I can make a difference'
Ryan Scarbrough, president of the LVRS, has been an EMT for more than 15 years and at Lakeside since 2013. He volunteered almost 1,200 hours last year and has served as secretary, chairman of the board, and chair of several committees. He started volunteering after he went on a ride-along with a friend who was an EMT, and then liked the people he met and discovered a sense of fulfillment that led him to get his certification.

Scarbrough is a Virginia-certified EMT — he was certified before Virginia switched to using the national registry — and a driver.

Scarbrough has successfully delivered six babies in his EMT work, but he was unsuccessful once performing CPR on a baby born about three months prematurely on I-95.

“[What keeps me coming back is] knowing that even though you made not succeed with some people, there’s always a bigger plan,” Scarbrough said. “God has a plan for everybody. I think what keeps me coming back is knowing that I can make a difference. Even though we might not have been able to save one, there is still somebody out there who needs help.”

Although the members of the squad range in age from those in their 20s to those in their 50s, leadership is based on training and experience, not age, Inge said.

The inevitable calls with bad outcomes linger with volunteers.

“I’d say the most challenging aspect is often knowing that there are some people that I can’t help, some people who have been injured to the point where their lives will never be the same, and there’s nothing I can do for them,” Shrader said. “We can give them the care that we can give in the field, and I can give them to an ALS [advanced life support] provider, or I can assist an ALS provider and bring them to the hospital as quickly as we can, but sometimes just knowing that life isn’t fair to everyone and [there is] no good reason that bad things happen to good people, that’s kind of hard to deal with.”

Despite the difficult calls, several volunteers say they persist because they know more people will need help.

“[What keeps me going is] knowing that there are other people who are still going to need attention and need help,” Shrader said. “Knowing that whether they intentionally hurt themselves, knowing that I could be there to help talk them out of it, or talk them down, or get them to the help that they need, that helps.”

Balancing a personal life and volunteering is another challenge squad members face, especially since volunteers are still needed on holidays, Scarbrough said. Another challenge: meeting the same standards as paid workers and maintaining the necessary certifications, Seymour said.