Mission Statement
About Stowe EMS
The town of Stowe employs five full-time EMS personnel who are cross-trained in firefighting. This dedicated team covers 15 out of the 28 weekly shifts. The remaining shifts are filled by per-diem workers and volunteers for Stowe EMS, ensuring a fast emergency medical response for the townspeople of Stowe 24/7, 365 days a year. Per-diem workers and volunteers commit to a minimum of two shifts per month to maintain good standing within Stowe EMS and SRS Inc.
Stowe EMS personnel must hold current credentials as either Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), Advanced Emergency Medical Technician (AEMT), or Paramedic, and recertify every two years. SRS Inc. provides much of the training equipment required for recertification and can assist with scholarships if needed.
The Town maintains two fully stocked ambulances as well as a squad car, a non-transporting vehicle designed to enhance crew agility. Typically, 2-3 EMS providers are on duty at all times with support from the Stowe Fire Department.
Stowe Rescue Squad History
In the early 1970s emergency care was provided by the Stowe Fire Department. The firefighters were trained in first aid and had used their own funds to purchase a state-of the-art Cadillac ambulance to transport their patients to Copley Hospital in Morristown. Pre-hospital emergency care, however, was changing rapidly. As a local nurse and member of Mount Mansfield Ski Patrol, Judy Aronow was working with the newly formed State of Vermont EMS Department teaching emergency care courses and she brought that training back to Stowe. Along with David Modica of the Burlington Fire Department Rescue Unit, she taught the first EMT course in the region under the guidance of Dr. Lewis Blowers from Copley Hospital. In that class were the people that would form the nucleus of Emergency Medical Services in the area; the founders of Morristown, Hardwick, Stowe, and Waterbury rescue departments. Joan Urie and Patty Myer from Hardwick, Pearl Metayer from Waterbury, Cabot Lyman from Morristown, Stowe Police Officers such as Ed Webster, Jim Moran, Bud Laclair, Ed Stewart, and Ken Libby. Ski Patrollers such as Bill Westermann, Glen Urie, Tom Mendes, and Willy Kayfus.
Those Police Officers and Ski Patrollers were to prove invaluable in the formation of Stowe Rescue Squad. The town select board approved the formation of the Squad in October 1974. It wasn’t until a few months later, however, that enough volunteers had completed training for Stowe Rescue Squad to go in service. On January 17 1975, the eighteen new members of Stowe Rescue Squad began taking call, along with the firemen who served as drivers.
The eighties and nineties saw continued growth and improvement in the delivery of prehospital health care. EMTs were now being trained in advanced airway management, intravenous therapy, medication administration, EKG interpretation and defibrillation. The members of Stowe Rescue Squad have consistently sought advanced training and have always been recognized as being one of the leading volunteer based ambulance services in the state. In 2006, for the first time, Stowe Rescue Squad registered with the State of Vermont as a Paramedic level service. Now, with an expanded scope of skills combined with state-of-the-art equipment and expanded pharmaceuticals, Stowe Rescue Squad volunteers, in cooperation with employees of the Town of Stowe Department of Emergency Medical Services, bring Advanced Life Support skills to the community. The Town of Stowe Department of EMS holds the primary responsibility to provide Emergency Medical response within the Town of Stowe, but without the hard work of the 35 or so volunteers, the department would not be able to do so effectively. It is the extensive training and dedication that these individuals bring that make Stowe Rescue Squad the professional organization it is today. In the first year, back in 1975, Stowe Rescue Squad responded to 150 calls. Currently, the department responds to around 700 incidents and requests for service per year.