NC Rescue Squad Withdraws Services

[NCRSQ751]

I saw this link on the front page and was amazed it had made it this far. This was a very polite article in our local paper yesterday. I know how everyone feels about volunteers packing it in and not serving the people of their community - so I wanted to make a comment as a former Chief of the organization.

That is NOT what happened. The decision to stop rendering services to Forsyth County was made by the Board of Directors of the Rescue Squad. The Officers and members were not any part of the decision and were in fact notified AFTER the county was.

The members are seeing to it that the services ARE still provided to the county. Most have gone to our sister squad, Winston-Salem Rescue and that agency will continue to provide a high level of technical rescue expertise to our citizens.

The only outstanding issue is equipment - this is being negotiated at this time and we hope for a positive outcome.

Bottom line - our volunteers will not drop the ball on our citizens.

[PAVolunteer]

What was the reason for the decision of the Board of Directors?

Stay Safe

[NCRSQ751]

The answers given were:

At the time of announcement we were read the letter that the county was sent which stated that we'd recieved a lack of direction from the county and that they felt there was no long term place for us in the system. They seemed to feel the county fire department was trying to take us over.

The following week the membership was told it ws becuase of a lack of expertise in the squad resulting from some resignations - yet they indicated those same individuals would field a USAR team (their long term plan for the squad was to continue as a substation of North Carolina Task Force 1 , which we are a member of).

I personally feel niether is accurate. I'm trying to refrain from speculation on the motives these folks may have had. I'm just glad it didn't end up in a loss of services.