Paramedics

martinsburg@herald-mail.com If City Council members approve the ordinance next week, three more paramedics will be hired for the Martinsburg Fire Department and every fire department employee will receive a two-step pay increase, city officials said Friday. Council members are expected to consider the matter Tuesday at a special meeting scheduled for 4:30 p.m. The ordinance would increase the minimum pay of a firefighter/emergency medical technician from $24,661 to $27,403, including automatic overtime pay. Salaries of firefighter/paramedics would increase from $27,188 to $30,212.

WAYNESBORO, Pa. - Paramedics-in-training are working in the field through the curriculum of a new Waynesboro school that has been called "intense" by at least one student. "It's got to be a total commitment. You've got to want this," student Jeff Grove said. The Pennsylvania Institute of Applied Health Sciences expected to start the 2006-07 school year with 13 students, but a couple didn't start and two others dropped out, according to dean Dr. Bruce Foster. The nine studied anatomy, physiology, biochemistry and a variety of basic sciences in the fall, Foster said.

11/14/96 A 3-year-old child drowned Thursday in the bathtub of his family's first floor apartment at 110 S. Locust St., according to Hagerstown City Police. Livil Augustus Morales Jr. was pronounced dead at Washington County Hospital at 12:14 p.m., hospital officials said. A 911 call was made after 11 a.m., saying that a child had drowned in a bathtub. Community Rescue Service paramedics responded to the apartment and arrived within four minutes of the call, fire officials said.

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - A Martinsburg man died Sunday after a large bale of hay he was trying to lift with an end-loader rolled down the arm of the tractor and pinned him in his seat, a Berkeley County medical examiner said. Charles Bartgis, 64, of Apple Harvest Drive, was taken to City Hospital, where he was pronounced dead Sunday afternoon, said hospital officials and Berkeley County Medical Examiner Sandy Brining. The accident occurred while Bartgis was working on a farm on W.Va.

charlestown@herald-mail.com MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - Martinsburg city officials agreed Monday to pay $2,500 a month for use of a rescue truck owned by Ryneal Fire Co. until a trial can be held to determine which entity should own a fleet of city ambulances. In addition to the $2,500, city officials agreed to assume the responsibility for the rescue truck, which includes maintenance. To insure it does not have an impact on the trial, the usage fee will not be told to jurors in the trial, officials for the two sides said during a hearing before Berkeley County Circuit Court Judge David Sanders Monday morning.

pepperb@herald-mail.com HAGERSTOWN - When the bay door rolls up at Community Rescue Service, three teenage volunteers there roll up their sleeves. They focus. Their lives are left at the base because the lives of others are at stake. "The patient is the priority," said Brandon Bolyard, 18, an emergency medical technician and Highland View Academy senior. Bolyard has been acquainted with the medical profession since he was a child. He was born with a serious heart condition and underwent two open heart surgeries before age 10, one when he was eight days old. "It affected his heart forever," said CRS preceptor Barry Nicklesberg.

karenh@herald-mail.com HAGERSTOWN - As the nation paused to remember the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, members of Community Rescue Service bowed their heads in prayer for the responders to a new disaster. Four CRS members left in a convoy of ambulances Saturday to join Hurricane Katrina relief efforts in Louisiana, CRS Lt. Melanie Shank said. Shank remembered the two crews in a prayer during a memorial paying homage to the EMTs and paramedics hurt and killed four years ago at the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon.

charlestown@herald-mail.com MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - Martinsburg City Council members gave preliminary approval Tuesday to a pay-raise package for the city's fire department employees, but not before one council member complained that the city's pay raise proposals are starting to get "totally out of control. " Council members Donald Anderson, Gregg Wachtell, Richard Yauger, Max Parkinson and Roger Lewis approved the first and second reading of an ordinance that sets up the pay increases.

Sheriffs will hold D.A.R.E. programs at elementary schools The Washington County Sheriff's Office in cooperation with the Lincolnshire Elementary and Hickory Elementary Schools, will be conducting a "Special D.A.R.E. Day" for the fifth-grade students to be held at the Lincolnshire Elementary School on Thursday, May 1, between noon and 2:25 p.m. Local police agencies, fire and rescue services are invited to participate. Those wishing to participate should call Deputy Forrest Sprecher at the Washington County Sheriff's Office, 301-791-3020 or 240-313-2195, or Lincolnshire Elementary School at 301-766-8206 no later than today.

GREENCASTLE, Pa. - Increasing runs to the Greencastle-Antrim area are prompting Medic II, the advanced life-support unit based at Waynesboro Hospital, to staff a paramedic and emergency vehicle at the Rescue Hose Co. No. 1 firehouse, Medic II's operations chief said Thursday. Brian Mitchell said 30 percent of Medic II's calls go to the Greencastle area, 10 miles east of Waynesboro, and beyond. The unit's four emergency vehicles, staffed with 22 full- and part-time paramedics and registered nurses, respond to about 1,800 emergencies a year, all in southern Franklin County.

Paramedic Scott McNew wouldn't consider himself a hero, but he is to two Chambersburg men for giving them a second chance at life. During the week of June 13, Randall Helman, 66, and Charles Staley, 83, suffered heart attacks. Both said they are alive today thanks to concerned residents using cardiopulmonary resuscitation and McNew of the Chambersburg Fire Department using an automatic external defibrillator. "He's a hero," Helman said of McNew. "People like him are needed.

Nursing and paramedic students at Hagerstown Community College got a taste Saturday morning of what it would be like to treat mass casualties during a disaster scenario that was staged at the campus. Pat Williams, chairwoman of HCC's disaster drill committee, said the Criminal Response Emergency Assessment scenario is given to the students every spring. "They can role play and not injure anybody," Williams said. "We look at what we do well, and what we don't do well, and what we can do to improve.

MONT ALTO, PA. -- A Mont Alto dummy will return to the classroom today thanks to area fire, rescue, forestry, nursing and emergency medical personnel who worked for nearly two hours Wednesday to save his fake life. IStan, of Penn State Mont Alto, was in stable condition Wednesday after nearly dying in a simulated forestry accident. Students in the Penn State Mont Alto Forest Technology program found iStan just off Pa. 233 in the Michaux State Forest bleeding from head and leg wounds.

Maryland State Police pilots and paramedics receive the best training in the world, said 1st Sgt. Charlie Eisele, the Southern Region supervisor, who spoke by phone from Aviation Command Headquarters in Baltimore. Everyone in the aviation unit from the pilots and mechanics to the duty officers are required to undergo both initial and ongoing training. Pilots must have at least 2,000 commercial flight hours before they can apply for a job, and the initial training can take anywhere from three to six months to complete.

WAYNESBORO, Pa. - Paramedics-in-training are working in the field through the curriculum of a new Waynesboro school that has been called "intense" by at least one student. "It's got to be a total commitment. You've got to want this," student Jeff Grove said. The Pennsylvania Institute of Applied Health Sciences expected to start the 2006-07 school year with 13 students, but a couple didn't start and two others dropped out, according to dean Dr. Bruce Foster. The nine studied anatomy, physiology, biochemistry and a variety of basic sciences in the fall, Foster said.

WAYNESBORO, PA. - Flipping through the crisp pages of 15-pound textbooks on Wednesday morning, 13 students became the first to attend the Pennsylvania Institute of Applied Health Sciences. In doing so, they brought a higher-learning institute back to Waynesboro for the first time in decades. The primary certificate program combines 384 lecture hours and 804 hours of hands-on training for students desiring to be paramedics - a field that school officials say is facing a serious shortage of qualified people.

WILLIAMSPORT - Now that he has graduated from Williamsport High School, Donnie Bingaman has set his sights on his next goal - becoming a paramedic. The 2005 Firefighter of the Year at the Williamsport Volunteer Fire Co., Bingaman, 17, recently was recognized by State Sen. Donald F. Munson for his achievement. Last year, Bingaman was a member of a class of nine students from Williamsport and Boonsboro high schools in a vocational program that placed them in local firehouses so they could get a head start on firefighting careers.

karenh@herald-mail.com HAGERSTOWN - As the nation paused to remember the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, members of Community Rescue Service bowed their heads in prayer for the responders to a new disaster. Four CRS members left in a convoy of ambulances Saturday to join Hurricane Katrina relief efforts in Louisiana, CRS Lt. Melanie Shank said. Shank remembered the two crews in a prayer during a memorial paying homage to the EMTs and paramedics hurt and killed four years ago at the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon.

pepperb@herald-mail.com julieg@herald-mail.com WASHINGTON COUNTY - A "paramedic to the bone," Jeanette Roseberry, an ambulance driver killed while transporting a pregnant woman to a Baltimore hospital Thursday, was remembered by her family as "loving, sensitive," her grandmother, Shirley Hood, said Friday. The ambulance's three passengers, one of whom was pregnant, were seriously injured in the 12:40 p.m. crash Thursday on Interstate 70 west of St. John's Lane in Howard County, according to Maryland State Police.

charlestown@herald-mail.com MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - Martinsburg City Council members gave preliminary approval Tuesday to a pay-raise package for the city's fire department employees, but not before one council member complained that the city's pay raise proposals are starting to get "totally out of control. " Council members Donald Anderson, Gregg Wachtell, Richard Yauger, Max Parkinson and Roger Lewis approved the first and second reading of an ordinance that sets up the pay increases.