By Tim Preston
The Daily Independent
LEXINGTON, Ky. — Boyd County’s emergency medical responders were recently recognized and awarded for being among the best in the state, with new programs that could help save patient lives, and Boyd EMS Director Tom Adams was singled out as EMS Director of the Year.
“The state EMS conference and Expo is held every year in Lexington Kentucky is cosponsored by the Kentucky ambulance providers Association of which right now I am the president, and the Kentucky Board of EMS,” Adams explained after receiving the award, adding the statewide conference for emergency medical service providers brings nationally recognized experts in the field and experts from across the state to offer classes and demonstrations related to EMS and EMS topics.
“This year at the conference, one of the keynote speakers and the speaker at this at the awards luncheon was Randolph Mantooth, who played Johnny Gage in the 1970s TV series ‘Emergency,’” Adams said.
Kentucky is divided into six regions for the Kentucky Ambulance Providers Association, Adams explained, adding each region is made up of 20 to 25 counties.
”Boyd County lies in region six of the Kentucky Ambulance Providers Association region, which includes counties from Boyd and Greenup County all the way into Pike County and over as far as I-75 in the southern and southeastern counties,” he said, explaining Boyd County EMS received an award for outstanding work in Region 6.
“In January of this year, Boyd County EMS was the first ambulance service in the state of Kentucky to implement a protocol for pre-hospital induced hypothermia and cooling of the cardiac arrest patient after the heart had been restarted in the field. At this time, although a number of services are looking at implementing the protocol for pre-hospital cooling of the post-arrest patient, Boyd County is still the only service that I’m aware of in the state doing this,” Adams said.
“This fact along with the continued modernization of the ambulance fleet and hard work of a staff that presents with a very professional attitude contributed to the reason that the ambulance service was named the agency of the year.”
The local emergency response community was furthered honored when Adams was announced as recipient of the EMS Director of the Year award.
“I was fortunate enough to be awarded the EMS Director of the Year for the Western division of the state at the conference,” he said. “I’ve been fortunate to be the executive director of an ambulance service that is progressive, sees the need for modernization, not only in equipment, but in the approach of care for the sick and injured patient.
“As the president is the Kentucky ambulance providers Association, I’ve been given the opportunity to help influence EMS across the entire state,” Adams added.
The awards are a reflection of “how hard we work as a whole organization from top to bottom to provide some of the best care in, not only the state, possibly the nation,” Adams said.
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©2014 The Daily Independent (Ashland, Ky.)