Syracuse Rescue Service facing possible closure; emphasizing the need for more volunteers

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) — The Syracuse Rescue Squad has served the community for years, with volunteers willing to answer calls at all hours, seven days a week.

Now, those same responders are asking for the community’s help before the service reaches a breaking point.

“We are down quite a few people, and we are experiencing increased call volume,” said Chief Tim Wilson. “So we’re kind of starting to burn out the providers and volunteers we do have.”

The Rescue team serves almost 2,000 people in and around the city of Syracuse.

Chief Wilson said the average time it takes to get to a patient and have them loaded and ready to go is only around 10 minutes.

Therefore, losing the rescue squad would mean adding valuable response time when every second counts.

“The next closest services are another 7 minutes away, and it’s a smaller town than Syracuse,” Wilson said. “They would have to be paged over, and the next closest service would be 17 miles away. So you’d be looking at close to 15-20 minutes before they would even get there, which is a huge delay in care.”

The squad is desperately hoping more volunteers step up.

Wilson said they’ll teach you everything you’ll need to know, all you have to do is apply.

“We’re a service no one wants to use, but you don’t know how valuable it is until it’s gone,” he said. “The more people we have, the less time we’ll need to cover. Even though it’s a volunteer rescue service, this is technically a job. We’re volunteering our time to this job.”