Desert highway crosses
Another five-hour drive home from San Diego, another opportunity to count the crosses along the highway as I go. I begin to count once I pass Kramer Junction, as Highway 395 streaks north through the desert crowded with RVs, camper vans, long haul truckers and suckers like me gunning down the highway through no man’s land headed toward the Eastern Sierra.
Home lies in the dusty, dry pocket of Owens Valley. Buffeted by winds during the winter and baked by the sun throughout summer. Olancha is a pitstop for Gus’ Jerky and gas with tourist trap prices as travelers on the 395 make their way to less harsh territory further north.
Yet this brief 11-mile stretch of two-lane highway is also home to the majority of crosses I count. While these crosses don’t represent the full picture of the lives claimed on this highway, every few years one or two more appear, serving as a reminder of the necessity of a lifesaving service in the area. This stretch of highway alone received approximately 60 EMS calls in 2023. The calls, like all calls received on the 90-mile section of Hwy 395 from Pearsonville to Big Pine, are run by local volunteer Fire Departments. And, like the Olancha/Cartago FD, each face serious challenges in maintaining operational emergency medical services.
The fragile condition of advanced life support and emergency medical services in the county was thrust into the public conversation when Symons EMS ceased their service in Bishop due to unsustainable financial losses. Symons had provided an ambulance since 1989 and although they had been augmented by volunteer EMTs for many years, the Bishop volunteer department was not able to independently provide the necessary emergency response in Symons’ absence.
Symons had been warning the Inyo County Board of Supervisors for years about the impending closure due to financial difficulties.
In January 2023, they notified Inland Counties
Emergency Medical Agency and the Board of Supervisors of their intentions to cease services in Bishop effective April 2023. Despite the forewarning, no replacement was identified by the county or ICEMA. After the first emergency bid for an outside contractor to provide EMS fell through, the Board of Supervisors put out another bid and contracted with Sierra Life Flight to provide ambulance services to Bishop and the greater Bishop area on a monthly basis. At present, the county Health and Human Services and board of supervisors are set to undergo a new set of negotiations for a yearlong contract.
The Sierra Life Flight bid awarded in the summer of 2023 was subsidized by a pool of funds generated from Inyo County resident taxpayers. In the past, grants have been allocated to other departments for ambulance and equipment maintenance, but there has never been a situation where the county needed to step in and subsidize a volunteer department.
Although the recent EMS situation in Bishop is what sparked the public conversation, the other volunteer departments in Inyo County have long operated under unstable financial conditions. The Board of Supervisors agreed in early October to pay a one-time subsidy of $25,000 to each of the four outlying volunteer Fire Departments, in addition to approximately $80,000 of total subsidies awarded to Bishop volunteer FD since July.
According to fire department chiefs throughout Inyo County, these additional funds will be utilized to address the lack of qualified volunteer EMTs, which is the greatest threat most departments face to remaining operational. The extra money from the subsidy will be directed towards obtaining the EMT certification, presently the most significant barrier to recruitment. In the past, there hasn’t been a recurring EMT course taught locally. This meant members had to drive to Ridgecrest or Bishop to attend eight weeks of class along with their regular work schedule.
Upon completion of the class, they would then travel to a certified proctoring facility in either Las Vegas, Los Angeles, or Reno.
Although some departments cover the cost of the class and the gas to attend, few members of the community choose to drive 45 miles after their workday and incur the expense in time and cost to fill a volunteer position. This difficult process has contributed to the shortage in available, qualified community members to serve as EMTs.
In addition to funding a more centrally located class, the funds from the subsidies will be allocated towards a pay raise for EMTs. Independence FD pay will go from $17 to $40 per call, which still falls short of the $50 per hour rate which Chief Joe Cappello states he would like to be able to pay his members. It is important to note the average time spent on a call is two hours but can often last much longer, and while these steps are promising in the short term, they will only last if the funding does. Once the subsidies are exhausted, the departments in the county will be back to square one unless more solutions and money are brought forth.
While the Olancha/Cartago Fire Department doesn’t receive the same volume of calls as Bishop, it is unique in the nature of the calls, the geographical area in which the department operates (which includes remote off highway areas), the distance to a hospital, and the time spent on calls. O/C FD, located in a town of 235 people is responsible for a 55 mile stretch of highway.
The speed limit throughout the entire length of highway is 65 MPH but traffic tends to travel around 75 MPH, resulting in high consequence accidents. Their jurisdiction also extends up Nine Mile Canyon to the west of HWY 395, and east to Fossil Falls near Death Valley. Due to road conditions, they must at times also cover other remote towns such as Keeler and Darwin. O/C FD has been running with a crew of 4 people since February of 2023. It takes a minimum of two people to run an ambulance. If three of the four EMTs leave town periodically for personal or professional obligations, the department is unable to respond to an EMS call. In the past year, the dwindling number of volunteers has begun to have a domino effect upon departments throughout the county, causing one town to have to rely upon another to provide emergency assistance. In turn, the department covering for another town is reduced in their ability to respond within their own jurisdiction, potentially increasing response times. There have been instances when no resources were available on a 95 mile stretch of highway from Ridgecrest to Independence, and when response times have taken two hours because the only active crew had to complete their current call before responding to another. Departments do what they can to prevent this from happening which often results in volunteers prioritizing the ambulance over their family and personal lives.
Volunteering in the community is an admirable choice.
Yet, most calls received by the FDs throughout Inyo County, particularly in Olancha/ Cartago, are for tourists passing through. For instance, the O/C FD receives about 50 EMS calls a year. Approximately
80% of calls in the past five years have been for tourists, of which half refused treatment and signed an Against Medical Advice (AMA). This results in locals serving mostly a tourism population at $20 per call. While the tourism economy is a major source of income for Inyo County, the volunteer departments responding to assist don’t benefit from the economy tourism brings. What little reimbursement the ambulance does see from medical insurance rarely covers the cost of running a call, and when an AMA is signed, they are unable to bill insurance to help offset the costs of the response.
Moving forward there is not yet a clear answer as to where additional funding for EMS services throughout the county will be obtained. There is potential to have future subsidies for Bishop EMS cost shared between Bishop City and the Bishop Paiute Tribe. As for the rest of Inyo County, ideas such as raising a sales tax that would generate money from tourists as well as locals, along with bringing in outside contractors, have been floated.
Although there are disagreements and discussions over who should get funding and where the money will come from, everyone agrees EMS is extremely important. Those who do prioritize their volunteer work with the ambulance are local heroes and should be recognized as such. The Board of Supervisors, Department Chiefs, members of the community and tourists who visit Inyo County and the Eastern Sierra must work together to ensure a well-trained, reliable and appreciated volunteer force capable of responding to citizens and visitors of Inyo County.
(Kirsten Allen was raised in Olancha and graduated from Lone Pine High School in 2009. While she no longer lives in the Owens Valley, she comes home often, and during one of her visits had a conversation with a friend who happens to be the Olancha Cartago fire chief, which sparked this article.)