
{"id":18590,"date":"2011-06-02T09:14:09","date_gmt":"2011-06-02T13:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=18590"},"modified":"2011-06-02T09:14:10","modified_gmt":"2011-06-02T13:14:10","slug":"sors-riding-to-the-rescue-for-40-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2011\/06\/02\/sors-riding-to-the-rescue-for-40-years\/","title":{"rendered":"SORS: Riding to the rescue for 40 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Margot C. Lester<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Staff Writer<\/em><br \/>\nMy mother would never call the South Orange Rescue Squad, even when she had chest pains (twice) or a collapsed lung.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s for people who are really sick,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d say later from her bed in the emergency room.<br \/>\nDespite my mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s belief, if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re having chest pains, trouble breathing or are in any other form of medical distress, I know for a fact the members of the South Orange Rescue Squad (SORS) will gladly come tend to you.<br \/>\n<figure id=\"attachment_18591\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-18591\" style=\"width: 350px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2011\/06\/02\/sors-riding-to-the-rescue-for-40-years\/rescuesquad1\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-18591\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/RescueSquad1.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"RescueSquad1\" width=\"350\" height=\"251\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18591\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/RescueSquad1.jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/RescueSquad1-113x81.jpg 113w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/RescueSquad1-150x107.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-18591\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nancy Storck and Dan Goulson met while volunteering for the South Orange Rescue Squad in the 1980s. They later married and now live with their children in Lexington, Ky.    Photo courtesy of Dan Goulson <\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nBut there wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t always a reliable source of emergency medical assistance in southern Orange County. Prior to 1968, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153there were basically no trained personnel to respond to medical or traumatic emergencies,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d recalls Jeanette Jones, one of the original volunteers and a founding member of SORS.<br \/>\nBack then, if you lived out in the county, you were on your own or had to wait on the sheriff or volunteer fire fighters if you were beset by something. Even folks living in town had to find their own way to the hospital, or rely on one of the local funeral parlors to carry them there. Pretty ironic, huh?<br \/>\nEarly days<br \/>\nThe first volunteer rescue service was established for the county in 1968. Three years later, the southern part of the county got its own service: SORS.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153After a particularly bad automobile accident involving a fatality and several seriously injured people, members of the volunteer Carrboro Fire Department along with several Carrboro businessmen \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Lloyd Senter of Senter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Drug Store and Grady Sturdivant and Clyde Jones of the Friendly Barber Shop, to name a few \u00e2\u20ac\u201c met and decided that something had to be done,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Jones explains. \u00c2\u00a0<br \/>\nSORS\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 first ambulance was a gift from Orange County Rescue Squad \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a hearse named \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Maude.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Hospital and state fire insurance personnel provided training for the inaugural class of volunteers.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Joining us in the first EMS class was Bynum Weaver and some of his employees who also became EMTs,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Jones recalls. The first day of duty was June 6, 1971. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We became paramedics, the second county in the state to have them.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nThe two volunteer services worked closely with Orange County Emergency Management to provide emergency and medical transport services for residents. They also provided vehicle \u00e2\u20ac\u0153extraction\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (think Jaws of Life) and high-angle rope rescue, confined-space and swift-water rescue services.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Over the past 40 years we have played many different roles in the county\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s EMS system \u00e2\u20ac\u201c from being the only EMTs and paramedics in the southern part of the county providing ambulance transport to the hospital, to staffing all of the ambulances with EMTs, to providing extra ambulances to supplement the paid county employees,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d explains Caroline Williams, a member of SORS. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We continue to provide dedicated, standby EMS coverage for a wide range of special events including UNC football, basketball and baseball; high school football; and various street fairs, road races and celebrations throughout Orange County.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nVolunteer army<br \/>\nToday, the squad has 96 volunteers on its roster, including instructors in CPR, EMS and technical rescue.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We are unique in that we will take brand-new EMTs straight out of their EMT class and give them volunteer experience on an ambulance so that they can later get a paid job doing EMS or get experience needed to go to, or for, medical or nursing school,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Williams says. \u00c2\u00a0<br \/>\nOver the years, more than 1,000 volunteers have worked with the squad. One is Chapel Hill native Dan Goulson, who worked on the squad during his medical training at UNC from 1985 to 1989, making him a lifetime member.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The first two years of medical school were all theoretical and not practical, but when I would take a 12-hour shift every 10 days, I got the chance to see what I was learning come into a real form,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d says Goulson, who now works with Bon Secours Kentucky Health System in Lexington, Ky. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Working with SORS was one of the great lessons in teamwork for me, too. We all shared in responsibilities and often rotated roles. There is no way to do this alone.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nFor Goulson, the squad provided more than a training ground, however.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I met my future wife \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Nancy Storck \u00e2\u20ac\u201c volunteering there. We call it a rescue romance,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says, laughing, before turning more serious. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The squad has also helped my family out. They have gone to my grandmother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in Northern Chatham County, and they picked up my mom from home on the day she died. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been away from home Orange County for 22 years, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always been a comfort to know that South Orange is around in case anybody really got into a jam.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nAnniversary party<br \/>\nThe squad will start celebrating its 40th\u00c2\u00a0anniversary this Saturday with an open house at the station on at 202 Roberson St. in Carrboro from 2-4 p.m. The event will feature CPR and rappelling demonstrations, station tours and a remote-control \u00e2\u20ac\u0153talking\u00e2\u20ac\u009d ambulance. Refreshments will be provided by Maple View Farms and Sugarland Bakery. The family-friendly festivities are free and open to the public. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My mother would never call the South Orange Rescue Squad, even when she had chest pains (twice) or a collapsed lung.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":18591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18590"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18593,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18590\/revisions\/18593"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}