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Equipment to help save kids
HAYES CENTER -- Hayes Center's emergency responders accepted a gift of pediatric equipment Monday evening from the "Young Children, Priority One Children's Project."
The kit was provided by the "Young Children" project, a Kiwanis initiative with the Nebraska-Iowa District Kiwanis Foundation, local Kiwanis clubs and the Nebraska Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Program.
The equipment and backboard, specially designed for children, are valued at approximately $1,800.
McCook Kiwanian Robert Ray told members of the Hayes Center squad, "We're honored to be able to help. We just hope that you'll never need it."
The goal of the Kiwanis-EMS partnership is to purchase pediatric equipment for emergency response services across the state that have little or no pediatric equipment.
The state's EMS Program contracts with EMS instructors across the state to provide two hours of pediatric continuing education for squads receiving the equipment.
The McCook Kiwanis Club and the District Foundation shared the cost of the equipment kit for the Hayes Center squad, and also for squads in Cambridge and Bartley.
The Cambridge and Bartley squads received their kits June 22.
For each of the three squads, McCook paramedic/firefighter Bob Allen led the training. Sharon Steele, Western EMS specialist with Nebraska Health and Human Services, represented the state's EMS Program.
Ray encouraged each of the squads to plan fund-raisers to help the Kiwanians purchase kits for other departments.
Steele said this is the second year of a five-year project to provide the pediatric kits. Approximately 150 Nebraska services have received equipment so far.
For more information on the "Young Children" project, contact local Kiwanis members; Steele, at (800) 572-7239; or Debbie Kuhn, "EMS for Children" coordinator, at (800) 422-3460, extension 2-1.