Life Saving Dedication

by Liv Stecker

For almost 30 years, Rick Kuh spent his free time serving the people of Stevens County. Among the many unsung heroes of our community, Rick was one of the longest acting volunteer emergency medical technicians for Stevens County Sheriff’s Ambulance until his retirement in 2015. Rick’s investment in the health and well being of our county began when he was living in Barney’s Junction area in the mid 1970s and he helped to form volunteer fire districts 3 & 8 along with several neighbors on the west side of the Columbia River. “ I guess it was self interest,” Rick chuckles, “if the pager went off and it was my house, I wanted to have a key to the fire hall!” His sense of humor and self preservation became a gift to the community as he served as assistant fire chief at Barney’s Junction before he and his family moved closer to Colville. 

As a volunteer firefighter, Rick jumped on board when the first EMT class was offered in Colville and the local fire districts were sponsoring candidates interested in being first responders. He was among some of the first EMTs in Stevens County, and began volunteering for shifts on Stevens County Sheriff’s Ambulance in addition to first response and fire calls from home. Like many of the volunteers at the ambulance service, Rick had to stay in town at the “ambulance shack” to make the 5 minute response time required for primary crew members. For 29 years he put in two shifts a week, often after coming off of his graveyard shift at work. 

Rick was an Employee of the Boise Cascade plywood plant in Kettle Falls for 40 years before his retirement in 2013. A self-proclaimed “hog waste engineer”, Rick was responsible for using waste bi-products from the lumber industry to keep the plant operating on steam power. “If I plug up, the whole operation shuts down!” He laughs about the bottom-up importance of his job at the mill. For many of those 40 years on the job, Rick worked the graveyard shift in the basement of the plant, and then made his way to Colville to put in a twelve hour volunteer shift with the Sheriff’s Ambulance. 

“People don’t realize what a gem they have here in the Colville Valley,” Kuh says, referring to the ambulance service. “How many people are going to stand knee deep in Sherman Creek next to an overturned car to start an IV on a patient? And who is willing to take the time out of their lives to walk around with a little black box strapped on their hip?” He says. It’s the little black box that pages out EMTs to all varieties of emergencies in Stevens and Ferry Counties, and reminds responders of their responsibility to their neighbors in need. 

Stevens County Sheriff’s Ambulance has always operated under the oversight of the Sheriff’s Office, and unusual arrangement for emergency medical response, but receives no money from the county for their operating expenses. A fee-for-service business, SCSA is able to provide medical transport at a fraction of the cost of big city contractors such as American Medical Response or even paid city fire departments. “If we didn’t have these people here,” Rick says of the volunteers at SCSA, “our bill would go up exponentially.” Rick believed in serving his community by helping to provide this service. The income from transporting has kept the ambulance service afloat, along with occasional grants and the ongoing support of volunteers in the community. 

For most of Rick’s career with SCSA, responders with the ambulance were considered “paid volunteers”, who received a minimal stipend for calls they responded to. Standby time and gas money for driving personal vehicles to town for shifts were not covered. The service now pays responders a minimum stipend per shift which is slightly over minimum wage for primary crew members but significantly less for back up crews. It is the dedicated men and women willing to spend 12 hours at a time on call for minimal compensation that keeps the SCSA operational. If SCSA went away, it would be replaced with a contractor such as AMR and transport costs would grow dramatically. 

Many local employers, including Boise, have been supportive of their employees volunteer efforts with SCSA. While Rick wasn’t compensated for hours of work that he missed if his ambulance shift ran late due to a last minute emergency transport to Spokane, Boise did not penalize him for coming on to shift late or missing hours for mandatory trainings. 

Rick says it’s disheartening to hear complaints about response times from the community. “These are dedicated people willing to take the time and effort - cut them some slack!” All of our local responders join volunteer forces in the area with the intention of serving and doing no more harm. It’s easy to forget that we are served by volunteers who are running every variety of call in all weather to a rural area. The EMTs for SCSA are also responsible for maintenance and cleanup of the ambulances, medical gear and the “shack” where they stay while on shift. “Two thirds of the staff live out of town and have to stay in Colville for 12 hour shifts.” Rick reminds us. That isn’t an obligation to take lightly. 

Rick grew up in the Tri-City area before he narrowly missed being sent to Vietnam to fight near the end of the war. He went to Washington State University to become a teacher, but was pulled out twice to answer the draft. The second call, and he was on the bus to leave for basic training when he found out they didn’t need him. Always drawn to the mountains, Rick moved to the Kettle Falls area to “get up in the hill country.” At the time, the job he got at Boise paid more than a teacher’s salary and he found a good fit at the plant and became active with the union and acted as vice president of the local branch. His wife Janey was a nurse at Mount Carmel until her recent retirement, and Rick continues to serve as deputy coroner in Stevens County, another volunteer occupation that he began nine years ago. Rick and Janey raised four children in the Kettle Falls and Colville area, and Rick was constantly involved in school athletics and the local Boy Scout Troop with his kids in addition to his volunteering pursuits. He now has 7 grandchildren to devote his time to, along with his duties as a deputy coroner and first responder. He might even fit some hunting and fishing into his spare time. 

In 2015, Rick decided to hang up his stethoscope after 29 years of service as an EMT. Still active with Stevens County Fire District 5 in Rice as a first responder, he says he had a good track record and decided it was time to focus on other priorities in his life. “I didn’t want to make a major mistake after all this time!” He says with a laugh. As EMS in Stevens County changes, Rick says “Over the years it has evolved and it is getting better.” But the bottom line is still good patient care, and that’s what Rick hopes stays the same. He acknowledges the dedication of his fellow volunteers through all of it, saying, “an increase in our wages won’t change our treatment.” After all, they were never in it for the money. 

Rick says his favorite part of his three decades of service as an EMT, in addition to helping people, was the network he came into contact with. “Working with the hospital - the ER staff and doctors, learning the skills as you go, the camaraderie...” he reminisces fondly, “you see the people you know and you think ‘we got this, it’s gonna go well’.” He says that “working with those kinds of people - you trust them to look out for you, and you look out for them.” Rick worked for many years with the same partner every Tuesday and Wednesday night, and he says the team picked up a rhythm. “Every Tuesday night you knew intuitively what they were gonna do,” referring to his EMT partners. 

The world of EMS is constantly changing due to state requirements and evolving laws. “It used to be all about making you a good EMT,” Rick says of EMS training. Now with liability issues and new testing processes he says it’s easy to overlook the purpose of the system: “Does it make you a good responder?” he asks. First responders in the local fire districts are a dying breed as training costs and requirements become grossly prohibitive for volunteers with families to support. The once vital asset in rural settings is now threatened by the very system that was set up to make it stronger. 

We are lucky in our area to have a support network for EMS, including Dr. Sam Artzis as medical director for local responders, and people who are still willing to pay out of pocket and dedicate hours for training and volunteering. We’ve come a long way from the Cadillac station wagon and tiny ambulance shack on Birch street with one small bedroom and a couch, where up to 8 responders would cram in for a long night shift. Rick remembers sleeping on a gurney in the back of the ambulance between calls on some of these shifts, as many other responders have. 

In 29 years, Rick witnessed three cardiac arrests in patients that came back from the brink of death, among other “miracles” of emergency medical service. Ongoing training and upgraded equipment have made the business of saving lives a little bit easier as time goes on. A new ambulance shack with real beds and a kitchen, newer ambulances and the best equipment north of Spokane for extrication and rescue, SCSA and Stevens County Sheriff’s Team Rescue are constantly striving to reach new heights in their standards of patient care and response, all while keeping the expense of emergency medical transport down. “We’ve never charged for a code green,” Rick explains, referring to a call that results in no transport for a patient. “That will have to change eventually.” With hundreds of square miles of coverage area, every 911 call can take an ambulance out of service for up to several hours. With recent changes in federal insurance requirements, along with a community of aging baby boomers, the call volume has continued to increase drastically every year in SCSAs response area, while the number of volunteers has decreased. 

If you are interested in becoming an EMT or first responder, get in touch with your local volunteer fire district or contact Stevens County Sheriff’s Ambulance at 509.684.8261. Classes are offered intermittently for new responders in the Colville area.