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Profile 2013
the tribune/jessica st. james
Partners Pete Lunsford and David Zornes are seen inside one of the Lawrence County Emergency Medical Services ambulances.
Life Savers
Lawrence County’s paramedics, EMTs ready for any emergency By Benita Heath | The Tribune
P
ete Lunsford sits down on the sectional sofa in the living room at the Ironton EMS station to catch his breath. Across from him the television plays that night’s edition of Jeopardy. Trivia buffs stand eagerly at their podiums, hoping to turn quick responses into cash. But the sound is low, no one at the station is really watching. For Lunsford and his partner, David Zornes, this has been one of those days — almost non-stop runs from the time they started their shift at 9 a.m., 10 hours earlier. As it is at so many emergency medical services, the paramedics and EMTs at the Lawrence County Emergency Medical Services work 24 hours on,
then get 48 hours off. It’s a schedule both men say they have easily adjusted to. That and the high-level energy they have to draw on instantly when the alarm sounds for the next run and the unknowns they must face. “You get used to being on a really bad run, the chaos and the pandemonium,” Zornes said. Then it’s over and they’re back at the station. “It hits you and you feel like the air has been let out of the balloon,” Zornes said. “You adapt to the ups and downs.” Each time the two men jump into one of their ambulances, they take off not knowing what they’ll see or find. Gunshot wounds. A child dying in the backseat of a sideswiped car. A burn victim. An unmanageable drunk. “Some we take more personally,
especially abuse,” Lunsford said. “You can’t come back and eat a peanut butter sandwich.” The Lawrence County EMS started two years ago out of necessity, when its predecessor — the Southeast Ohio Emergency Medical Services — disbanded. However, both men, as are many of their colleagues, are veterans of the SEOEMS era, giving them almost a decade each of time in the field. Fifteen minutes have gone by when the squawky siren that means there is an emergency call blasts through the headquarters. Zornes hooks up with the 911 dispatcher. It’s a case of afibrillation. The men jump into the ambulance. Lunsford drives. Zornes is in the back. Arriving at their destination, Lunsford hops out of the cab to help Zornes pull
the stretcher out of the back. The patient is calm, but watches the two men intently. Zornes puts monitors on the patient’s wrist and stomach to hook him up to a mobile EKG monitor. That will immediately give the vital information the two men, and the hospital, needs. Zornes clips another monitor on the patient’s thumb. “I want to check your oxygen level,” he says. “Anything you want to tell me? Your pulse rate is good and regular.” Then they’re off to the hospital with Zornes radioing in vitals to the ER. “We’re about five minutes away,” he tells the ER nurse. The ride is quick and uneventful. But, with the county’s new $90,000 ambulances loaded with $35,000 plus in equipment, the two men could have handled almost anything.