Glen Lake EMTs adjust to emergencies during coronavirus
Photo of Aaron Brown by Linda Dewey
By Linda Alice Dewey
Sun contributor
On March 19, less than a week after the Michigan stay-at-home lockdown began, I collapsed in my Glen Arbor cottage. When I awoke, I was barely able to call 9-1-1. Soon, several members of the Glen Lake Fire Department crowded around my bed. Within minutes, Lt. Aaron Brown had ascertained part of the problem.
My sugar level was 39. “What should it be?” I asked.
“At least 80,” he answered.
We surmised that, since I hadn’t eaten much that morning, I was hypoglycemic. Brown squeezed glucose gel into my mouth from a toothpaste-like tube, gave me another in the ambulance and put me on an IV drip, while he monitored the rise and fall of my heart rate. In spite of my fuzzy state of mind, I was extremely aware that going to the hospital was something to be avoided.
My sugar began to rise, and I became alternately more lucid, then I relapsed. When I felt better, my attention turned to the man treating me.
Brown is one of three lieutenants with the Fire Department. Each heads a team of five emergency personnel. I know his wife, Carrie, who is finishing her eighth year as a teacher at Glen Lake School. I could tell Brown was the kind of guy who has a positive outlook. As my consciousness waxed and waned, his bedside manner became fluid. He became almost jocular, when appropriate, which made the trip to Traverse City, if not enjoyable, at least tolerable.
Several weeks later, I contacted Brown to ask how he stayed so positive, when he never knew what kind of danger a day on the job might present during the COVID-19 pandemic.
His response was very open. “My feeling is, I have the best job in the world,” he said. “We help and take care of people when they need us. Whether [that need is] very big or very little, there’s big enjoyment from helping people out every day.”
As he nears age 50, Brown is in his 11th year with the Fire Department. “I came on as a paramedic/firefighter.”Paramedics administer medication, read the cardiac monitor, start IVs, perform intubation, all of which, he said, enhances survival rates. EMTs can bandage, splint, give oxygen, administer the defib.
He started in Lansing, then moved to Grand Blanc. “My dad was retired out of the state police, so I grew up watching him help people,” he said. “He found it satisfying and unique.”
Realizing he didn’t want to become a police officer, Brown went to Lansing Community College to get his EMT. At age 22, he became a volunteer fireman in St. Johns, where they also put him through fire school. “At Grand Blanc I worked for a private ambulance service and volunteered at the fire department, then saw a job opening up here and applied,” Brown said. He and Carrie live in Empire with their three children.
When Bryan Ferguson became chief of the Glen Lake Fire Department last year, Brown was promoted to fill his spot, alongside lieutenants Chad Dykgraaf and Jay Morse.
How did Brown adjust to gaining a position of authority from being one of the guys and gals? “I try to treat [them] as I would want to be treated—with respect and fairness,” he said.
Contact with COVID-19
By the time we were halfway to Traverse City in the ambulance, my glucose had risen to 68—and I was becoming curious about something else, something on everyone’s mind.
I had heard that someone in Leelanau County had been transported to the hospital with COVID-19 symptoms just days before. Brown confirmed that and disclosed that he had attended “the patient.”
This was shocking. It had just happened. In fact, as I found out later, it had occurred just one week earlier. Why wasn’t Brown in quarantine? He told me he had been all suited up and was safe. I asked where the person was from. Because of HIPAA health information privacy laws, he couldn’t say anything more about the patient specifically, but we could talk about the situation.
I wondered what it was like for the EMTs and paramedics to know they could be exposed to such a danger. At that time, the test wasn’t yet available, so they had no way of knowing if the next call might be a COVID call. (They still don’t.) Brown said they suit up for any such calls and reassured me they were ready for it, inside the vehicles and out.
At the hospital, Brown exited the rear of the ambulance and was met by a Munson EMT who shouted in a military voice, asking whether anyone on board had been in the presence of someone who had tested positive for COVID-19. Brown answered in a low voice. I didn’t catch his words, but I did hear the loud response.
“You have?”
Brown must have pulled the Munson EMT around to the side of the vehicle because their voices moved away from the open doors. He explained briefly with a very low, now-just-calm-down tone, something about all the protective gear they had worn. I did hear his final words—that it was considered a “non-exposure.”
Weeks later, I spoke with Glen Lake Fire Department chief Ferguson and asked what that meant. “It’s not considered an exposure,” he said. “We put policies in place using recommendations from the state and the hospital—what type of equipment to wear, and we bought more equipment—respirators and stuff.”
I asked if the entire team had been exposed, and Ferguson shared a chilling fact. “We’ve had eight of our employees that have had contact with positive patients, out of 17 who regularly work on the ambulances. We have 25 employees, total,” he added. “Nineteen emergency staff in Leelanau County have volunteered to work on the specially equipped ambulances for suspected COVID-19 calls,” he said.
Munson let us in. Except for staff, the Emergency Room was virtually empty on March 19—only one other patient besides me. My stay was uneventful. My heart tested fine, and my glucose, by the time they released me, was in the 180s.
I returned home but had a lot to digest. I wondered how EMTs like Brown deal with what they’ve experienced after a call, and I asked that in our subsequent interview.
“We get done with a call and we have good support. Everybody on the shift talks about what happened,” he said. The EMTs discuss the call and share feedback to support one another. “It helps you deal with those after-the-call feelings. We’re continuously talking about the calls to see if there’s something we could have done different.”
“That’s the name of the game,” he concludes. “The better we are prepared and can handle situations, the better for our community.”
Pandemic necessitates changes at Glen Lake Fire Department
With fewer people around and fewer activities in which they can participate due to the lockdown this spring, it’s not surprising that call numbers at the Glen Lake Fire Department declined to slightly below average.
There’s a second reason for the decline, however. “People are understanding that you have to stay home and gut it out,” observed Brown. “But there’s a fine line of when-do-you-call, and when not … It weighs on everybody’s mind.”
He believes citizens are making wise choices in limiting their calls.
When a call does come in, the pandemic has necessitated observable changes this spring in the way the department operates.
Chief Bryan Ferguson notes that it used to be, the department always sent three or four emergency personnel on a call. When they arrived, he said, “All four went into the house. Now whoever gets there first will make contact through a door or window and talk to see if they have any symptoms.” COVID-19 symptoms can include dry cough, fever, and difficulty breathing, according to the Benzie-Leelanau Health Department.
Brown describes the new procedure step by step. “We will send one person in PPE [personal protective equipment] with a surgical mask, put the mask on the patient, then the other guy—we try to limit it to only two; if we need the third, then he’s there, but we try to limit his [or her] exposure—the other [EMT/paramedic] comes in. They ask questions, do the normal routine—take blood pressure, ask medical questions, get the patient on the stretcher, load up and take to hospital … A driver usually brings a little rescue truck … One will drive, one will attend in the back. The third drives separately and is there, just in case.”
If personnel suspect the patient might have COVID-19, Ferguson says they “change into PPE—gloves, mask, goggles always, maybe a different respirator, gown, Tyvek suit, shoe covers, head covers. The Tyvek suit is a disposable coverall, zips up the front shoe with shoe cover, like a painter doing insulation in a house would wear. They’re usually white head to toe.”
There’s a respirator (N-95 or P-100) mask in all the ambulances. Surgical masks, he added, are “most effective on a patient with the disease. A surgical mask stops droplets completely or at a few feet rather than six feet,” he said.
There are two specially equipped pandemic ambulances in Leelanau County. One is kept in Glen Arbor. Ferguson detailed the difference between those and regular ambulances. First, it has more protective gear—Tyvek suits, respirators and face masks. Second, Visqueen plastic is taped over the cabinets on the wall and so airborne particles can’t get into the cab. They spray that down when they’re done. Third, it’s equipped with a three-foot square Plexiglas box to be placed over the patient’s head but is open toward the feet. They have already put a surgical mask on the patient. Four-inch holes in the box allow them to administer medication. The box is “meant to keep the patient’s exhaled air away from us, so it goes down toward their feet,” said Ferguson.
Another big change during the pandemic is decontamination. Employees wash their clothes and take a shower after every call now. “Someone may have an infectious disease and not know it,” Ferguson said. They wipe everything down inside the ambulance with special chemicals now, too. Periodically, they send vehicles to Dave’s Garage in Empire, which has an even deeper decontamination process that they’re providing to the Fire Department free of charge.
All of these changes are continually updated, Ferguson said, because things keep changing. “On a weekly basis, we’re changing something up. We’re going on the fly here.”
Brown and Ferguson are both concerned about asymptomatic carriers—people carrying the virus who don’t know it and are thereby spreading the disease.
“You have to stay vigilant with keeping the social distance,” said Brown. “As far as people coming up, as long as they do the 14-day quarantine, I think it’s okay.” He does have misgivings about the public’s willingness to social distance, however. “Unfortunately, people are going to do what they want. They feel like it’s their right.”
Ferguson comes down hard on this point. “It seems to me that a lot of stuff with this virus, people are taking as political. Like, they’re not gonna wear a mask, because they’re on one side of the political spectrum. The other is…” He pauses. Then, “The virus doesn’t care,” he warns. “It’s not political. It’s going to transmit. By not taking precautions to spread the virus, you could be hurting your neighbor by not following the suggestions from the CDC.”
