By VALARIE SCHWARTZ

When we in Chapel Hill and Carrboro call 911 for a medical reason, emergency management technicians (EMTs) of Orange County Emergency Management respond.
When we are stuck in confined spaces, in swiftly moving water, or have physical problems while attending UNC games or local street fairs, members of the South Orange Rescue Squad respond.

The two services that had merged in 1999 are again separate organizations.

Now the Rescue Squad, once funded by Orange County, has become a nonprofit organization with a board of directors dedicated to raising the funds required to provide the equipment needed to keep its 25 or so dedicated volunteers armed with what’s needed to get us out of trouble.

Some of the personnel who respond with Emergency Management also volunteer with the Rescue Squad.

“It’s very confusing to the general public,” said Matthew Mauzy, interim assistant chief of the Rescue Squad.

To confuse us even more, the Rescue Squad and Emergency Management are housed in the same building on Roby Avenue in Carrboro, across the street from Tom’s Fish Market.

Here’s a way to separate it out in your brain.

Emergency Management services are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The technicians and paramedics who respond are paid for the hours they work.

Members of the Rescue Squad report to games at Kenan Stadium and the Dean Smith Center, to Festifall, Apple Chill and Halloween evenings in downtown Chapel Hill — and to emergencies that require rescues. They wear two pagers at all times and respond to calls whenever they are on call.

Emergency Management provides patient care, but the Rescue Squad provides patient access through rescue.

Caroline Williams, 24, took an EMT class five years ago while a freshman in college. She passed the test and started volunteering with what was then Orange EMS and Rescue Squad.

“I never got paid for EMS,” Williams said. “I really enjoy doing it as a volunteer.”

Two-and-a-half years ago, she learned technical rescue. “There were three women at the time but two left pretty soon after,” she said.

“Leah was the only one (of the women) who stuck around,” Williams said.

Leah Tilden, 26, grew up in northern Chatham County, the daughter of Sandy and Bryan Tilden. She didn’t mean to, really, but she followed in her fath-er’s footsteps. He volunteered with Orange Emergency Management Services for years and is now with the Rescue Squad.

“When I was little, and he was teaching, he brought me in as a victim,” Tilden said.

She even got to dress for the part, pulling out the Halloween make-up to look like she’d been in an accident. Then, at age 15 she became a lifeguard, followed soon after by lifeguard instructor.

“When I got out of college, Dad suggested that I take the swift-water rescue classes to see if I liked it,” Tilden said. “I had no desire to do EMS.”

But she liked the swift-water rescue.

“For the level of rescues with swift water and high angle, you’re required to hold certain standards of health care,” she said. “If they’re stuck out on an island, there’s no ambulance.”

So she took an EMT class.

“I fell in love with it and worked as a volunteer until the county took over EMS transport and what I was doing became a paid position.”

Then she started doing it full time, which fits perfectly with the internship she’s doing in health psychology at UNC Hospitals as part of her master’s degree program.

“It’s an ideal job,” she said. “I get to do this, which I love, and do counseling with kids, which I love.”

She counsels children as they wait for transplants or recover from illnesses or accidents.

Like most of the people involved in emergency services, her motivation is to help people.

“It’s through the values my parents have instilled in me,” she said, mentioning her years in Girl Scouts and times she volunteered with her parents at Orange County Rape Crisis. “There was great role modeling from both of my parents.”

Tilden did not accept the role as first female on the rescue squad without some hardships.

“The rescue gear was not made for women,” she said. “Nothing fit me.”

She stands 5-feet, 4-inches tall in her boots.

“My dad helped me buy some of my gear,” she said. “I tried very hard to recruit other women.”

She did a good job. About half of the rescue team is women, and they now receive gear made for women — a must when it comes to wetsuits.

“The team is fabulous,” Tilden said. “No one has ever said ‘You can’t do it because you’re a girl.’ Everybody has weaknesses in certain areas but we work together as a team.”

Williams attended a conference of rescue workers from all over the world where she and the other woman attending with her, also from Orange, were treated like they were junior members or high school students — until they did skills training.

“Then they knew we knew what we were talking about,” Williams said. “It’s been fun to find things I’m better at than the men are.”

Like working in confined spaces. “I can maneuver inside the tunnels and spaces better and faster than some of the men,” she said.

Maneuvering contributions from the community has become a priority for the Rescue Squad.

“Southern Orange is not doing vehicle extrications because we don’t have the equipment,” Mauzy said. “It’s a sizeable amount of money we don’t have the resources for at this time. We have a lot of people who have done vehicle extrications in the past and want to do it. It’s a service we need to be able to provide to the community.”

They also need an ambulance, communications equipment and air packs (breathing apparatus for confined-space rescues). The ambulance alone can cost from $80,000 to $120,000.

Mauzy, a systems programmer at UNC, and others team members, left their jobs twice in a two-week period to go to western North Carolina during hurricanes last month.

“Francis caught some folks off guard,” but by the time they were deployed, the worst was over, Mauzy said. “We were there in advance of Ivan but fortunately, there was not the amount of rainfall predicted.

Syd Alexander, a Chapel Hill lawyer, is chairman of the board for the rescue squad and appreciates the work the volunteers do.

“It’s a very exciting opportunity for people to provide volunteer services for the people of southern Orange County,” Alexander said. “It’s a wonderful educational opportunity for members of the university community who are interested in going into emergency medicine or medical fields.”

When you receive a letter in the mail this week about the Rescue Squad, remember the efforts that are put toward saving us from life’s challenges.

Contact Valarie Schwartz at 932-2011 or vschwart@nando.com.

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