Hawkins County Rescue Squad answers 1000th dispatch of the year

ROGERSVILLE — At the Hawkins County Rescue Squad's Christmas dinner, Capt. Corey Young told attendees they'd answered 999 calls that year. He joked the 1000th call would probably come that evening. Not even an hour later, as everyone was cleaning up, it did. It was a medical call — the squad's most common — from east Rogersville. Three members left dinner to answer it. A few more calls came through that same night. Earlier this year, Young said, he told several members, "Don't be surprised if we hit 1,000 calls." The squad has been averaging three to five calls a day — it was inevitable. This milestone is notable, then, because it's the first time the squad has received 1,000 calls in one year. Last year, it didn't reach 900. Five years ago, it didn't even reach 500. Young said when he first joined the rescue squad, around 2007, they looked for things to do. "Now, it doesn't take long if you're on standby to get a call," Young said. "And most of the time, you go from one call to the next." The rescue squad's call volume has doubled in five years. Young attributes that increase to multiple factors. Population growth, for instance, prompts more demand for services. Industrial growth brings more people to the county, too. He also said people have become more adventurous since the COVID-19 pandemic, and more willing to take on home repairs and other tasks themselves as service costs rise. "And so, with that, there's a bit of strain on the agency," Young said. "It's more calls, so it's more wear-and-tear on our equipment and more tasking for our members." The rescue squad looks for additional members and funding — from local government and grants — to offset this. Membership comes in spurts. One week, the squad may lose a few volunteers and, the next, several more will become interested, Young said. People tend to age out as life catches up with them: careers, children and more. "I don't know any public safety agency — and I talk to a lot of them — that doesn't need members," Young said. "Everybody needs volunteers." But for the most part, he said, the rescue squad has maintained nearly 70 members. In the past decade, the squad has especially focused on its junior program for volunteers ages 12 to 18 years old. Young said they want to get these members hooked on helping their community through public safety. The squad has also appealed to new volunteers by stationing vehicles in remote parts of the county. This reduces travel time for members and, thus, response time to calls. Grant funding enabled that and other changes, like a quick response truck at the main station in Rogersville, equipped with medical equipment and rescue tools. The squad's equipment itself has improved with industry advancements, Young said, becoming more compact and battery powered. And now, every vehicle has fully stocked medical bags, including an automated external defibrillator. Additionally, more squad members have emergency medical responder training than before. "We've been able to maintain the same level of service, even though the call volume has doubled. And, we've been able to continue doing that with the same amount of [county] funding." Young said. "We've been providing these services since 1958 and plan on doing it for several more years."