M-F-L Ambulance celebrates EMS Week

The MFL Ambulance Service is very proud of its history and its ability to respond to all the calls we have been paged too. Our service has been here for more than 40 years and we want to stay and serve our response area for many more. 

Our service is like all the services in the nation, it’s getting harder and harder to get volunteers to join EMS services. I know it’s a big time commitment to take the class to become an EMT, or if you are a Registered Nurse (RN) or higher already to give of your time off to help out, but what some people seem to forget is that everyone on the service now and in the past has had jobs, families and other commitments, too. Our service can only stay here and supply this area with great coverage with the addition of new volunteers. 

The response area that we cover has always received the best coverage and the fastest response times, but if we don’t get new volunteers the response time may slow because we have to wait for our responders to come from out of our area to respond to the call. We still have a great group at the MFL Ambulance Service, but our numbers are getting smaller. We are asking our volunteers to cover more time and we have a couple of members who have been on the service for more than 30 years and they want to retire someday! 

I guess I always think of it this way — when the pager goes off and I’m sleeping after working 18 hours, in the middle of Christmas dinner, watching a ball game or getting ready to go do something fun and I have to respond, what if it were my loved ones that needed the help and no one responded. Everyone on our service has given of themselves time and time again. I’m asking that people that are able to please give of themselves and help us out. If you want the great responses that have been in the past, present and near future to remain, come join our great team so we can provide this service for many years to come.

Our service has had two people retire this year — Carla Pester with 26 years of service and Scott Henkes with 27 years of service. We want to thank them for all the calls they have been on, meals they have missed, family functions they couldn’t attend and jobs they left or were late too during that time. They both will be missed greatly.

If you want to join our service, please contact Mary Bissell, Crew Chief, at 563-880-1020 or 563-539-2646.

Photo of M-F-L Ambulance crew include, front row (left to right): Billie Jones, Becky Harnack, Scott Torkelson. Back row (l-r): Nick Torkelson, Mary Bissell, Karla Schrader, Preston Landt, Melanie Cahoon, Cynthia Torkelson, Wendy Gress-Yearous and Jim Schellhorn. Not pictured are: Todd Balekos, Lee Ball, Clare Benzing, Brian Berger, John Elledge, Jill Francis, Rachel Fritz, Chris Hoffert, Josh Kluth, Andy Meyer, Trent Miene, Carla Pester, Arlan Quandahl, Jane Quandahl, Haley Ruff, Jim Schlee, Brant Schrader, Jenny Torkelson, Jamie Welsh and Andrew Wille.