Headquarters Keeps EMS Up at Night

Monroe Emergency Medical Service volunteers pulling overnight shifts have two bedrooms upstairs to catch some z's until they're toned out for a medical call. But some say bad acoustics inside EMS headquarters at Jockey Hollow Firehouse keeps them up at night, adding when they do get to sleep, they wake up to sore throats from mold in the building.

Dennis Condon, chairman of the EMS Commission, says the service lost 11 volunteers from last year and that 12 current ones refuse to sleep in the building.

Town Council members — Chairwoman Enid Lipeles, Dee Dee Martin and Nick Kapoor — and reporters toured the firehouse Monday night.

A few EMS crew members said men and women often have to share the same bedroom. And Diane Czerniawski, who volunteered for eight years and had done overnight shifts, said during a hurricane 11 people were stationed at the firehouse, so some had to sleep in the ambulances.

"The volunteers here are a special breed," she said. "They suck it up because they want to serve the community."

Czerniawski and Condon showed cracks in walls and water damage inside the building on Jockey Hollow Road.

The town is getting bids to repair a leaky roof, fix the plumbing and make structural improvements to the firehouse. Ideally, Condon said EMS would have a new building in the center of town. He estimates it would cost around $2 million.

Kapoor said, "EMS is not important until it's important."

He suggested that the $2 million estimate could be met by cutting the $2 million for maintenance and repair of Monroe's roads by a $1 million one year then by a million the next — or by not funding the roads for one year.

Lipeles agreed.

Martin said, "Someone serving in a volunteer service — or anybody — shouldn't have this environment. This is a service for the town."