Pella Hy-Vee made a donation to Pella Community Ambulance to help purchase self-loading cots. Pella Hy-Vee Store Director Derek Sparks presented a check to Pella Ambulance Director Greg Higginbotham of $5,000 this week. Sparks has been training to become a volunteer EMT with the service, and says he saw firsthand how important the self-loading technology is to paramedics and first responders.

“I first saw it at one of the Thursdays in Pella, and they were giving a demonstration on it and you sit there and you look at it and you just don’t really understand the need ,and then you see the price behind it, and you’re just like ‘wow do you really need it?'” Sparks says. Then after going through the EMT training and learning what I’ve learned up in Des Moines, I’ve got to go do some clinicals and some ride alongs and you get to use those cots a lot, and you see the need. I just couldn’t believe it, and then when I completed my training and I come back here and you think of all the volunteers that are helping out with the ambulance and how many calls they go on…you definitely see firsthand why it’s important.”

Higginbotham says the self-loading cots can help extend the careers of their staff, which will help keep their team active longer, and also help with transfer time from a scene to area hospitals.

“The population just keeps getting a little heavier and a little heavier,” he says. “Our EMTs are getting older, and it’s not as easy to lift that heavy weight. The cots that we did get eliminate one of those lifts, but then if you ever notice the back of an ambulance, it’s a pretty high lift to get a cot into the back of the ambulance. We still have to lift them currently to get them in the back. If we have 400 to 500 lb person on a cot, getting them in the back creates a lot of strain on the back, and we want our paramedics and our EMTs to be around here as long as they possibly can.”

Each self-loading cot on an ambulance will cost approximately $35,000.