Thursday, July 13, 2000  Middleton Fire and Rescue adds ambulance By JENNIFER HIGGINS Democrat Staff Writer MIDDLETON — Middleton Fire and Rescue Department recently received a new addition to its family of apparatus: a new ambulance. The department received the new ambulance on July 3, and then used it to respond to two calls on July 4. "Some weeks you have no calls, and some you have six or seven," Police Chief Daniel Yoder said. Since the new rig was delivered, Yoder said it has been out on approximately five calls. Previously, the town owned an ambulance that had been bought from Wakefield five years ago. Two months before the new ambulance arrived, the rig Middleton purchased from Wakefield needed to be fixed. Great Bay Ambulance in Somersworth generously provided the squad with one of its ambulances, for no cost, according to Yoder. Yoder, who runs and oversees the operation of the ambulance as a captain on the fire department, said he recently earned his Emergency Medical Technician Intermediate license in January. Time commitments when training to earn an EMT basic license is about 220 hours of class time and observation, Yoder said. To train for an intermediate license, the commitment is approximately 600 hours, he added. "You have to be really dedicated to be an EMT in the first place," Yoder said. "I do it because I believe that it's my obligation to the community. It's what I give back." As Middleton Fire and Rescue is a volunteer organization, it is difficult to get people to make those time commitments, Yoder said. He added that Middleton is "getting to not be such a small town anymore." It was also becoming increasingly more difficult for other towns to respond to mutual aid calls as they were tied up more often. These factors, Yoder said, contributed to the need to have a new ambulance. The new ambulance is equipped with a defibrillator and is equipped for IVs and the administration of some medications, Yoder said. The rig cost approximately $75,000, or $85,000 fully equipped. Middleton is still limited with the care they can give, Yoder said, and will still need to call Rochester for mutual aid as Middleton has no paramedics. "It's great to have good equipment and to use it, but if we don't have to use it—that's a godsend," Yoder said.