Helping across U.S. — and on Strip
LV paramedic crew responds to disasters
When disaster strikes, Las Vegas’ American Medical Response paramedics have two hours to pack up and hit the road.
“Every operations manager across the U.S. gets sent a message saying, ‘Hey, we’re getting ready for a FEMA deployment,’” government and community affairs manger Damon Schilling explained. And then it’s go-time.
Las Vegas’ AMR branch is among the first called to respond to a
FEMA incident, like a hurricane or wildfires. Its paramedics were also among hundreds of first responders called to the scene of the Route 91 Harvest festival shooting, which left 58 dead and mroe than 500 injured.
And a select few, including AMR operations supervisor and paramedic Brett Dragun, have done it all.
In the last three months alone, Dragun responded to Hurricane Harvey in Texas in August, the Oct. 1 shooting and the California wildfires.
“It’s kind of draining,” he said. “Being on the emergency response team, you’re always on standby. Right now I’m sitting here, but my bags are packed. This time of year, you always stay on edge just kind of waiting.”
AMR in Las Vegas has six teams of about 30 employees who volunteer to be part of the traveling brigade that drives cross-country to save lives. The help cuts local responders some slack while they deal with the personal effects of a disaster.
“Can you imagine having to be at work running calls on people, knowing your house is going to be destroyed?” Schilling said in reference to Hurricane Harvey’s cleanup efforts. “It took a huge chunk out of Houston. They just don’t have the resources alone to take care of that incident.”
In some ways, traveling to California offered Dragun a distraction
from talk of the shooting. “It was definitely good from a mental standpoint to step back.”
Still, there are moments from the