It's 1970 in Bonnyville and you're in need of immediate medical attention. You call the hospital for assistance, but it's not an ambulance that shows up at your door – it's a hearse.
Before the days of modern ambulances, a dispatch service, and full-time Emergency Medical Services (EMS) staff, local residents relied on medical transport in the form of a hearse or old sheriff's vehicle. With no mandated medical training, those picking up patients and driving the vehicles were volunteers.
“When I started, there was a local police officer in Bonnyville, his name was Freeman Nicholson. He was the town constable and had a black van he used as a police car. My very first transfer to Edmonton from the St. Louis Hospital was actually in that van. We would take the army cot stretcher and put it in the van,” recalled Ray Prevost, a current town councillor who was Bonnyville Municipal Ambulance's first full time manager. “There was no roof space, the patient had to lay down and there was just one red light on the top. We would transfer patients using that black van from about 1971/72 to 1974. There were quite a few of us who were doing it at the time.”
In 1974 the community and hospitals came together and decided it was time the area had a proper ambulance service. On October 22 of that year, with an initial funding agreement between the Town and MD of Bonnyville, the Bonnyville Municipal Ambulance was formed.
The first ambulance was a 1975 Chevrolet Suburban, replacing the hearse and sheriff's car. It was stored in the shop of a local business, until the expansion of the fire hall on 47 Ave. next to the hospital was completed. A few years later, when the fire hall was relocated to 54 Ave., the ambulance service took over the entire building.
“It was still operated by volunteers in those days. I was a volunteer and there were quite a few volunteers at that time; dedicated people that didn't mind getting up at 2 in the morning and spending a sleepless night on the highway or answering a call,” said Prevost, remembering fellow volunteers such as Bill Gilbert, Rollie Germain, Irven Courts and Andy Vachon.
Prevost noted that in the years following the formation of the ambulance service, they purchased two more vehicles to have three in total.
“We had state-of-the-art equipment. We had mobile incubators, we had a lot of good equipment for sure – that's one thing we were never short of, but most of our guys were doing this on a volunteer basis so not everybody was 100 per cent trained.”
With a brand new ambulance service, the time had come to have some hired staff. In 1980, Prevost was hired as the first Bonnyville Municipal Ambulance manager, with the condition that he complete an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) course.
“I had to go to Edmonton and what I would do is go to school during the day and put in a six-hour shift with Smith's Ambulance, which is what it was called in those days,” noted Prevost.
After a month of driving into the city each weekend to complete the course, the outreach program came to St. Paul allowing him to finish the training and, in 1981, receive his certificate.
“I applied for the outreach program to come to Bonnyville, and it did. We had it right at the ambulance hall and so many volunteers that had dedicated their time took the course. We ended up with amazing group of people that were paired up and each pair would take a week at a time. When they left town, there was always a back-up service.”
At the time, the local ambulance service was still in charge of completing the billing and looking after all accounts. About a year after becoming manager, Prevost hired Chris Palmer, who eventually moved on to working with the Cold Lake Ambulance Society.
Throughout the 1980s and 90s, Bonnyville Municipal Ambulance operated with a small core group of full-time staff, as well as dedicated volunteers. Servicing an area with over 15,000 residents and 2,700-square miles from Glendon to Ardmore and La Corey down to Kehewin, call volumes exceeded 1,200 calls per year.
To dispatch the ambulance before the days of two-way radio, residents would call the hospital itself.
Staff at the hospital would dispatch the ambulance using beepers. Just prior to Prevost becoming manager, they switched to using an XJ phone in the ambulance before eventually moving to a radio system.
“When you were responding to a car accident you never knew what you were up against. You didn't know anything until you got there, and how to respond to the needs of the individual. That was the biggest challenge. We found out early-on that you needed more training than what we had at the time,” expressed Prevost.
When it comes to ambulance service, Bonnyville has always been ahead of the game for rural communities. In 1999, Joanne Lemieux, who was the manager at the time, graduated as an Advanced Care Paramedic. This designation allowed Bonnyville Municipal Ambulance to become the first northeastern Alberta rural service to provide Advanced Life Support (ALS).
“It's a huge difference; from basic life support to advanced life support is a major advantage,” said Regional Fire Chief Brian McEvoy. “With the system currently in the province, ALS service is just about universally available in Alberta now. Back in 1999, ALS level EMS was not available in most rural areas. It was typically only in the major centres like Edmonton, Calgary, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat and Red Deer.”
As they entered the 2000s the call volume rose significantly, prompting the addition of full-time and part-time staff to meet the needs.
Changes behind the scenes were happening as well. In 2008, the province of Alberta took over responsibility of delivering ambulance services from municipalities. Bonnyville Municipal Ambulance became a contractor for the province and, in the late 2000s, the board for the local service went through a reorganization resulting in the town and MD acting as the board of management.
In 2013, the two municipalities agreed to transition the management and delivery of EMS to the staff of the Bonnyville Regional Fire Authority (BRFA) and its board of directors.
Today, Bonnyville Municipal Ambulance has five ambulances, a paramedic response vehicle, and a non-ambulatory transfer unit all located out of a state-of-the-art emergency services hall, which also houses a training centre and the regional 911 dispatch. The ambulance service has evolved to a full-time service, but continues to rely on a dedicated group of primary care paramedics who work as casual employees in addition to their regular jobs.
“I've spent a lot of time over the last 40 years travelling all over the province. I've been in emergency services for 37 years and have worked all over Alberta. When I first got here in 1996, to see the level of service available in Bonnyville was very impressive and its continued to be impressive since that point,” said McEvoy. “Every time there's an advancement, there's a change in service. Primary care and advanced care paramedics today are leaps and bounds ahead of their counterparts from 10 to 20 years ago.”
Prevost added, “It's a Cadillac service today compared to what we had in 71/72... It's a well needed service, too; I'm glad I was part of it.”
The current EMS division of the BRFA is comprised of Deputy Chief of EMS Alicia Stone, Assistant Deputy Chief Ken Hesson, Administrative Assistant Natasha George, and about 40 full-time and casual paramedics. Staff now respond to 2,800 calls per year, or about 7.57 each day.
McEvoy noted that EMS continues to be an evolving industry, but there are a lot of dedicated people working in that industry who make the service what it is.
“What makes us a successful service are the people that are employed in it, full time or casual. It's their dedication to their industry that keeps us as one of the best services in the province.”
