A Home for McCarthy EMS
The McCarthy EMS building coming together. Photo by Hannah Rowland
Hannah Rowland - CRR Staff
As seasonal workers return to McCarthy and business starts to ramp up, the community is witnessing the construction of the new Medical Service Building. This building, owned by the volunteer EMS group in McCarthy, is a project the whole community has come together to make happen. In only a week, it went from a concrete foundation covered with snow to a framed building ready for roofing.
The building is to serve the purpose of being a garage for the EMS ambulance as well as to provide a local area for medical response training, and a place for a future community medical clinic. Even though the community of McCarthy is blessed with doctors and nurses who own cabins in the area, there has been no place for them to bring their practice to provide for the community while they are in the area. Instead, the people of McCarthy must travel many hours to get to medical clinics, birth centers, and hospitals.
The need for this local service has been existent for many years. Since the closing of the Kennecott Mine, the town has come to be a small community with a large tourist attraction instead of a ghost town. During the days of the Kennecott mining company, the local hospital in Kennecott was the destination for many pregnant women from around the state to come and give birth as well as other people who needed medical care. But ever since then, there has been no medical facility in the area.
Framing the EMS building. Photo by Hannah Rowland
In the last few years, there was a surge of local, statewide, and national support for the EMS group in McCarthy. This surge of support has resulted in the construction of this building. A person once said, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” This saying is certainly true for McCarthy EMS because the community came together to provide this resource, after our only ambulance was vandalized and left inoperable.
In the summer of 2017, Jacob Shultz, head of McCarthy EMS, got into the ambulance only to find that the wiring in the machine had been damaged. It was parked in an unsecured location. The cause for the destruction is still unknown to this day, but the generosity of others has been known from this day forward.
Signs were posted all around town asking for any information on how the ambulance had been vandalized. One of these signs caught the eye of a visitor from Wisconsin, Jonathan Dobbs. He had spent many years volunteering as an EMT and he also worked in supplying medical products. Dobbs saw beyond the need to find out what happened to the current ambulance, and, in 2018, he arrived in McCarthy driving an ambulance with the McCarthy EMS logo. He gave this to the community at no expense.
With this wonderful donation of a newer and improved ambulance, the community did not want to repeat history and started to talk of ideas for preventing future damage to the EMS ambulance and supplies around town. We first decided that we would no longer park the ambulance in the same location. It was decided that the ambulance should be easily accessible for the responders and was parked at a board member’s house where the EMS could monitor the ambulance on a regular basis and be ready to use it when needed for a response.
The ambulance was to be parked there in the summer and the Rowlands provided safe winter storage in an old metal shop near McCarthy Creek for the winter. The Barrett family (the grandchildren of the founder of McCarthy) generously donated a piece of property to provide a place for this building, which will be the final parking place for the ambulance.
In their proposal to receive funds from McCarthy Area Council from this project, they stated: “A local professional licensed/bonded contractor and a historical architect working for the NPS have donated their time and work with us on the building design. The north wing is dimensionally laid out to accommodate the inclusion of a potential future health clinic. The south wing includes multi-purpose rooms which will support emergency medical response as well as EMS, search-and-rescue and fire training. The look of the building is to fit the historical look of the Kennecott Mine and Copper River and Northwestern Railway buildings. It will be a building to serve the needs of our growing community.”
Walls of the new EMS building going up. Photo by Hannah Rowland
The community of McCarthy has always seen the EMS response as a resource for those who are injured while hiking in the mountains or on the glacier, rafting in the rivers, etc. There is an accepted risk to many of the outdoor activities in which both visitors and locals participate daily. But in 2019, the need for medical services for those who are at home became more evident as well.
It was the day before Mother’s Day. I was at home with a 6-week-old baby and still working on recovering from a complicated delivery. I had called my midwives many times about my concern that my bleeding had not decreased. They responded saying it is different for every woman, but that bleeding until 6-8 weeks can be normal. We were planning on going to town the next week for appointments, hoping that we could examine and address the issue then.
But on this morning, as I was sitting on our couch nursing our daughter Leah, I felt a surge of blood rush through my body. I immediately set Leah down in a safe spot, grabbed my phone, and went to go sit on the bucket outside. I didn’t know exactly what was happening, but I knew I needed help, and I needed it fast. I was having a hemorrhage.
I called my husband and then I called 911 after I tried the local EMS contact. After a short of delay, McCarthy EMS dispatched a couple of responders and we decided to call for a life flight rescue. We were unable to use the ambulance that day, but they had a covered truck bed that was used to transport me to the airstrip. As we were waiting for the plane, they put a tourniquet on both legs, wanting to keep the blood in the more important areas of my body.
Thankfully, when I was on the plane and we were at cruising altitude, they were able to attach me to an IV and take off the tourniquets. I was flown to Merrill Field and transported to Providence Hospital. The response by McCarthy EMS was successful, but they did see that there was a need for more local volunteers to be ready to respond year-round.
In 2021, the EMS applied for a grant from the McCarthy Area Council for $40,000. They also applied for a grant from the Rasmusson Foundation and held a fundraiser in support for the building. The MAC application was approved unanimously and the Rasmusson Foundation was overwhelmed by the amount of local support for this project and granted the EMS more money than had been requested– allowing the building to be built in one stage instead of three. The construction of the building will continue through this summer and will result in a finished exterior. The next phase of the project will be to finish the interior of the building.
EMS building closer to finished. Photo by Hannah Rowland
The story of this building is truly a story that shows the heart of our community. Even though we have our differences, we support each other and want to take care of what has been given to us. It is so good to see, three years after my hemorrhage, that the building is being constructed and there will be a way to have a future local medical clinic in addition to local emergency response.
More from Hannah Rowland:
Removing the Mask of Papa Pilgrim
More McCarthy Stories
McCarthy Area Council Holds Last Meeting of 2021
McCarthy Area Council Convenes for its First Meeting of 2021
