Burlington Ambulance Service born from tragedies

Adrian Preator recalls Burlington Ambulance Service being started in the mid 1980s after the deaths of two local residents. Preator told the following story from his perspective and memory, while acknowledging it may not be anywhere near the way it was:
“I got out of the service in December of 1979 and had some advanced first aid training, so I got involved in search and rescue in Basin.  I got certified as a first responder and shortly after that was contacted by the Burlington Fire Department to help them learn how to run an old military fire truck they had acquired.  I ended up joining the department and helping with that service.”
Sometime in the mid 1980s, there was a car wreck. The person died of exposure. There was another death from a heart attack during those years.   He explained, “We didn’t have the emergency address system we have now and if you didn’t know where the old ‘Johnson place’ was, you might not know where you were going.  There was no 911 system at that time either, and people really didn’t know how to contact emergency services or that they were even available.  I don’t know if an ambulance was even called for in either of these two cases or if it was and just couldn’t get here quick enough.”
When Preator learned about these deaths, he thought it was sad there wasn’t better emergency services in the area. He started talking to others in the community. At a Fire District Board meeting, a man who had moved from Colorado said the fire department there wasn’t getting much community support. They decided to add an ambulance service to the department. Support for that service “exploded.” This is when this Fire District decided to explore the possibility of doing this in Burlington.
Preator explained, “I talked to several people in the community and convinced them to take an EMT class with me that was being held in Basin.  We were able to get four EMTs certified from that class.  I talked to the state to see what it would take to start an ambulance service without fire department and got a copy of the statues governing an ambulance service.  With the fire department’s support, we were able to buy an old ambulance and get it outfitted with the necessary equipment.  The EMTs committed to being on call and serving with the service and we were able to get a local physician to sponsor us.  We were also able to get West Park Hospital to agree to restock the ambulance after every call and to supply us with oxygen for the ambulance as most of our patients went to their facility.  This helped tremendously as we didn’t charge for ambulance service.”
They were able to recruit more EMT’s and First Responders, get a newer ambulance, radios, and pagers. At that time, they were considered by the state medical officials to be one of the best basic ambulance services in the state.
The service has never charged for medical attention or transport.
“The grant that we have just received is the only way possible for us and other small departments to continue to provide service in small rural areas,” said Preator. “Due to skyrocketing costs for medical equipment, it would be impossible for almost any service provider to continue to operate without this kind of support.  We are so
grateful for this help as well as the other support we have received from other grants and partners in the past.”