Valley emergency workers to get awards

The waiting time for 911 call responses was typically 12 hours.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- A locally based ambulance company and a disaster medical assistance team will be honored in Columbus for their roles in the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.
Action Ambulance Co. of Warren and a disaster medical assistance team based at St. Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown will receive Star of Life awards May 16 from the Ohio Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians.
The Youngstown-based team of doctors, nurses and paramedics is headed by Douglas Broderick. The awards ceremony is being held in conjunction with National Emergency Medical Services Week.
"We were sitting here watching on TV as people were dying and knowing that we could do something to help, and we decided to get in our truck and go help," explained John L. Popadak, president and chief paramedic at Action Ambulance.
After the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the American Ambulance Association issued a call for help, Popadak and Tom Reed, an emergency medical technician, drove an Action ambulance on Labor Day weekend to a staging area in Baton Rouge, La., where 300 ambulances were being assembled in response to Hurricane Katrina.
In New Orleans and Texas
After 18 days, paramedic Roger Cooper flew to New Orleans to relieve Popadak. Two weeks later, Reed was relieved by Mike Nelson, an emergency medical technician.
After 19 days of donated service in the Hurricane Katrina relief effort, the Action ambulance was repositioned for Hurricane Rita relief in Texas, where FEMA paid for its services.
The Action ambulance logged 12,000 miles in the hurricane relief missions, encountering an ambulance from Shenango Valley Ambulance of Sharon, Pa., which was also assisting hurricane victims.
"The roads were washed out, and you had to find your own way around," Popadak said, noting that he and Reed were unfamiliar with the New Orleans area, which is 1,200 miles from their home base in Warren. "After three or four days, you found your way around pretty easily," Popadak said.
"They locked the phone system down. The only number you could dial was 911," Popadak said. The emergency response system was so overwhelmed that 12 hours would typically elapse between a 911 call for rescue and a response to it, he recalled.
Ambulances were generally dispatched in hourly waves of 50 each starting at 6 a.m. daily. "Every night, we came back out at dark because the city was so unsafe," he said, noting that Action's ambulance came under sniper fire while crossing a bridge in New Orleans.
One who was rescued
Popadak recalled rescuers coaxing a confused 72-year-old diabetic man, who had been taking insulin and eating only saltine crackers for three days, from his house in New Orleans into a military high water rescue truck after the man said he wouldn't leave until he could talk to his wife.
After the man ate two apples and drank two glasses of water en route to shelter at the city's convention center, his blood sugar stabilized, causing him to emerge from his confused state and tell rescuers that his wife had actually died 27 years ago. "That situation could be repeated 1,000 times over," Popadak observed.
Ambulance crew members worked 12- to 18-hour days in hot, humid weather, sleeping in their ambulances, tents, church halls and family residences. The Action crew was fortunate to sleep some of the time in quarters occupied by a tree-trimming crew, Popadak said.
The devastation of the hurricane-stricken area was overwhelming, Nelson said, noting that, after Hurricane Rita, he saw boats that had been deposited "miles from any water."
30-year-old company
Action, which has 45 employees, six ambulances and three wheelchair transport vans, celebrates its 30th anniversary this week. Popadak's father, John M., who is now retired, was the founding president of the company, which was formed May 3, 1976.
ACEP honored Action in 2001 for rescuing a man under hazardous conditions from an industrial accident at the former Copperweld Steel mill in Champion.
milliken@vindy.com