By Alan Mauldin
The Albany Herald
DOUGHERTY COUNTY, Ga. — When the multi-agency SWAT team goes out on a potentially dangerous assignment, James Gibney is often among the group heading into the action.
Gibney, a paramedic with Dougherty County Emergency Medical Services, is on hand for those operations to render medical assistance if needed.
For the newly appointed interim EMS director, who is a U.S. Army veteran, that role is part of his service to his community, one that included 13 years with the Albany Fire Department before he got into the emergency medical field.
“It was sort of a natural progression,” he said. “The fire department was a lot of fun. The thing for me was ‘What’s next?’ Where do they go when we get them out of a car or a building? It was kind of ‘What do I want to do now?’
“Since I started with the fire department I’ve been happy with my employment everyday. Once I started down the EMS path, I loved it more than the fire department.”
In the final days of his tenure, retiring EMS Director Sam Allen is assisting Gibney in preparing the department’s 2025-2026 budget.
EMS is budgeted for 80 employees currently, including a full-time staff of 50 and up to 30 part-time paramedics and emergency medical technicians.
The agency runs seven ambulances for the first 12 hours per day of two shifts and six for the remainder of the day. There are five EMS stations located throughout the county.
After leaving the Army, Gibney, who was born in Germany and moved around as his Army dad was stationed at various locations, came to Albany initially to manage a Staples store. In 2008, he went to work at the fire department.
“I wanted to get back in public service, a team environment,” Gibney said. “I met my wife (Tracy); she’s from Cordele. As I got older, I wanted more, and that led me to EMS. I fell in love with that.”
The interim director taught at Albany Technical College for about three years, instructing many of the EMTs and paramedics now employed with Dougherty County EMS. With that background, he said he is looking to teach some skills lab at Albany Tech and other locations, partially as a means to recruit for the local unit.
Since moving into the assistant director’s role, Gibney had to give up teaching, but training is a major component for the EMS staff. The agency has a training supervisor and eight field training officers to reinforce skills.
“Some of the skills you don’t use every day,” he said. “That helps keep those skills up.”
Gibney said he sees his role as making sure the staff has the training and equipment needed to deal with the job.
“I like it, from the standpoint of making sure the crews have everything they need,” he said. “It’s a bigger opportunity to serve the public. It also allows me to serve the EMS.”
With the types of situations emergency medical workers find themselves in, like serious accidents on the road, stress is part of the job, and it is an issue Gibney addressed as an instructor and now as an administrator.
“When you’re new, part of it is you’ve got a bad thing you’re dealing with,” he said. “The thing I used to tell students is ‘You did not create this.’ What they’re responsible to do is to make it better. You’ve been given an opportunity to make something better.
“We’re here to play the odds to make something better. We’re here to give people the best chance to survive. I want it to be if you’re injured or sick in Dougherty County, you’re going to have the best chance of recovery you can have anywhere.”
For EMS employees, the COVID-19 pandemic was a stressful time, as little was known about the disease in the early stages.
Gibney stayed at a hotel the first week, concerned about infecting his family, before coming home. His routine included immediately washing the clothing he was wearing in hot water as soon as he walked in the door at home.
“I had it twice,” he said. “My family never got it. It was a stressful time.”
For much of the time, shifts consisted mainly of bringing one patient sick with COVID to the hospital, disinfecting the ambulance and then on to the next COVID patient.
The EMS workers donned full personal protection suits that were miserable in the south Georgia heat for much of the time.
“Nobody liked those suits, but you understood and you did it,” Gibney said. “The masks were uncomfortable. It was what you needed to do, and we all stood up and did it. It’s not something I want to do again.
“The hospital, they were the ones who were really stressed out. Those patients we were bringing in one by one, they had to deal with them all.”
For Gibney, the role of working with the local SWAT team for three years is another way to use his skills.
“It kind of brings together some military skills and paramedic skills in the same job,” he said. “I love being on the team, making sure they’re safe and getting them home.”
The interim director said he plans to apply for the permanent position, and Allen, whose last day is Friday after 31 years in emergency medicine, said he has full faith in Gibney’s abilities.
“Through these 17 years, Albany has become my home,” Gibney said. “I can guarantee if you have a medical emergency in Dougherty County, we’re going to get there and give you the treatment you need.”
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