for the Ambulance guys

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Blizzard or no blizzard, when volunteers with the Kadoka Ambulance Service were summoned to an Interstate 90 traffic accident 22 miles east of Kadoka Saturday, the rig went plowing through snow drifts to reach the scene.

A Kadoka Fire Department rescue truck followed the ambulance when it left town at 6:45 a.m., battling drifts on old Highway 16 to the 1880 Town, where the crews entered the interstate.

"It was horrible," ambulance service president Jackie Stilwell said of the weather conditions. Stilwell and fellow EMT Dick Stolley left the driving to Clarence "Web" Osborn.

Osborn, 77, has logged more than 100,000 miles responding to emergencies in the past 12 years, but Saturday's trip was the first that ended 30 hours after it began.

After loading two patients, one of them critically injured, the ambulance made its way to the Hans P. Peterson Memorial Hospital in Philip, 43 miles away.

Busy in the back with the patients, Stilwell recalls the trip took "longer than normal. We were driving in a whiteout."

From Philip, the ambulance was sent to Rapid City with one patient.

With winds gusts topping 30 miles per hour in snow and freezing fog, there was no question of calling for an air ambulance, Stilwell said. It was up to the ambulance to make the 80-plus-mile trip to Rapid City Regional Hospital.

"We didn't have a choice," Stilwell said. "When a patient needs to go on, you go on. You do what you have to do."

Kathy Chesney, an on-call volunteer paramedic for the Kadoka and Midland ambulance services was tapped to ride along to assist with the patient.

Chesney, who pastors the United Church in Philip and at an Interior church, is called out about twice a month for the emergency trips.

Like the rest of the crew, she didn't hesitate because of the nasty weather.

"I think I asked, 'Can we get there,'" Chesney said.

Osborn describes the trip as "white knuckle job." At times, he got the ambulance up to 50 mph, but most of the trip was made at slower speeds as he navigated the icy roads, at times barely able to see.

"The adrenalin was awful high," he said.

For those riding in the back of the ambulance, it was a disorienting trip, Stilwell said. Looking out the back of the ambulance, everything was white. "You couldn't see any landmarks."

An advanced life support team from the Rapid City Department of Fire and Emergency Services met the Kadoka unit west of New Underwood, where paramedic Kurt Klunder climbed in to assist.

Leaving their patient at Rapid City Regional Hospital, the ambulance crew elected to try to head back to Philip and Kadoka.

Stilwell is the mother of three and Chesney had Palm Sunday services scheduled. As it turned out, the weather and road closures forced Chesney to cancel her church services.

"We thought just maybe we could make it, and they hadn't closed the roads yet," Stilwell said.

After a quick stop at Don's Valley Express for sandwiches and their first experience at getting stuck, the ambulance made it as far as Box Elder's Liberty Boulevard exit. There Osborn called it quits because his windshield was icing up, and the ambulance floundered in a snow bank when he pulled off the interstate to turn around.

The ambulance didn't carry a shovel, but it does now, Stilwell said. Osborn invested $16 in a shovel on Monday. The crew spent about 90 minutes with a tire iron trying to free the ambulance before a snow plow came to their rescue.

After spending the night in a Rapid City motel, the crew made it home about noon on Sunday.

It was the first time that a Kadoka ambulance crew was forced to spend a night away from home, Stilwell said.
 
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