Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, May 6, 1990                   TAG: 9005060274
SECTION: HORIZON                    PAGE: F4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Reviewed by SIDNEY BARRITT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BOOK LOOKS AT LIFE INSIDE RESCUE SQUAD

A word of introduction: The author, Pat Ivey, grew up in Salem, attended Bridgewater College and studied creative writing at the University of North Carolina. Now she lives in Wilderness, Va., where she serves that community as a cardiac technician with the local rescue squad. Most local readers will know that Julian Wise originated the tradition of a volunteer rescue squad here in the Roanoke Valley. So it is quite fitting that Ivey's book comes to our attention.

"I could never work on a rescue squad." How many of us, including Ivey, have said that at least one time about the difficult work that falls to the rescue squad?

The author did, but decided to confront her fears and accepted the challenge. Her book chronicles her training and first years on the Lake of the Woods Rescue Squad. What were the technical skills she had to master? Whom did she treat? How was her life interrupted? Perhaps even more interesting to most of us: How did she react to the stress of being responsible in those rare moments when lives hung in the balance? What went through her mind in pulling a dead child from a car wreck?

Read it here. The tale is told simply but well.

This is not "great literature" but it bears witness to a nobility of spirit that still exists in special communities. That spirit certainly animated Julian Wise many years ago when he conceived the idea for a rescue squad. More recently, it animated the founders of the Free Clinic in Roanoke. Whether that same attitude toward community service still exists today is hard to assess. Rescue squads, as a particular manifestation of community spirit, have fallen on hard times, having difficulty attracting and retaining members. Of course, there are many reasons for that, and service on a rescue squad is not the only form of community service.

But the issue is real. The work must be done. Unresolved is the question of whether volunteer crews will continue in the path Julian Wise first trod, and in which Pat Ivey now treads. The need is evident. Will others step forward to volunteer or will the community turn to paid crews?