District 20 regains transportation license

Lewis/Cowlitz Fire District 20 has regained its transportation ambulance license after more than two months of negotiating with state officials.

The district’s license had been downgraded from transportation to only medical aid June 1 after the Department of Health (DOH) determined the district was not in compliance with a state law passed in 2011 requiring at least two medics to be present during ambulance transportation. At the time, District 20 had only one EMT, Ruth Crear, volunteering and were told they would need additional medics to regain their license.

Since that time, District 20 has reached out to neighboring aid agencies, as well as volunteers previously associated with the district, and found three others to help bolster their medic numbers: Jason Vein and Kendra Miller, who used to volunteer with District 20 as EMTs, and Carrie Pennington, an EMT with Lewis County Fire District 15 in Winlock.

District 20 Chief Richard Underdahl said these extra individuals were enough to allow the DOH to officially reinstate the district’s transportation license Aug. 13, adding the physical license itself arrived Thursday.

"We’re back to where we were," he said, stating he is grateful for the other aid agencies (District 15, Lewis County Fire District 2, in Toledo, and Lewis County Medic One) for their help and support of District 20 as they sought to regain their license.

But according District 20 commissioners, this had all been a process the district should never have had to endure in the first place.

The license downgrade was first insisted upon by DOH after a request was submitted at the end of last year to officially update the district’s name after a merger between Vader and Ryderwood, according to Underdahl. At that time, DOH asked for the district to reapply for their license instead of simply change the name, and then told them they would have to apply for an aid car license because of their lack of medics.

District 20 argued they do have access to more medics than Crear on a regular basis for transports, as District 20 has a mutual aid agreement with the other agencies in the area and can request additional medics when needed.

For example, it is not uncommon for an ambulance from Medic One to meet up with an ambulance from District 20 and have a paramedic from Medic One join the District 20 ambulance on its way to the hospital, while a second paramedic, or other emergency response personnel, drives the Medic One ambulance back to its headquarters.

But DOH officials replied this practice alone would not satisfy state requirements and asked for individuals to specifically list District 20 as a secondary agency until personnel
requirements were met. While it remained ambiguous until recently how many such individuals would need to sign up, DOH has affirmed the current four medics with District 20 will do.

Ambulance services provided by District 20 have now resumed as they were before, stated Underdahl, with no requirements to alter or otherwise upgrade their vehicle, as nothing needed to be changed when their license was downgraded to an aid car. Their upgraded ambulance has already seen action after a devastating fire consumed one house and damaged another in Vader (see page 5), resulting in one injured individual but no serious or life-threatening harm.