The siren's call: Paramedics, EMTs celebrate call to service with METS

May 19—Steve Mounce was on duty on May 17, 1982, when the first call for an ambulance came in for what now is Metro Emergency Transport Service.

At that time, the ambulance service operated under the name Joplin Emergency Medical Service, or JEMS. But today, 40 years later, though it has the METS name, its mission to save lives and transport patients is the same.

Mounce on Wednesday remembered that first day as a ceremony and open house was held in observance of the 40th anniversary of METS.

"It was a medical call that involved some advanced life support, which was something that was very new to this city," Mounce said. "That was the first day of advanced life support paramedic service and we got to use those skills on that first call. It was quite remarkable."

Mounce worked as a paramedic for 12 years before he went on to get nursing degrees and became a registered nurse. He works as a travel nurse now in the Springfield area, but he reunited with a dozen or more of his early co-workers Wednesday as they saluted the four decades of ambulance service provided from a station at 625 Virginia Ave.

"It's a good steppingstone if you're looking at going into the medical field," Mounce said of EMT and paramedic training. "And it's a good area to make a career out of, and you can learn a lot."

The service last year provided medical services while answering 19,000 calls. So far this year, METS is on track to exceed that number as it celebrates another year in answering emergency calls as well as those for transferring medical patients between hospitals or nursing homes.

Employees and former employees of METS along with state and county officials gathered Wednesday to mark the milestone.

"I think it is a huge accomplishment to reach 40 years," said Jason Smith, who has worked for METS since 1996 and has served as director since 2010.

The service has about 90 employees to run eight ambulances weekdays, seven on weekends, and six at night. METS covers all of western Jasper County including Joplin, Webb City, Carl Junction, Asbury, Alba, Oronogo and Carterville.

Its former entity, JEMS, was founded by the three hospitals that served Joplin at the time: St. John's, Freeman and Oak Hill. That lasted until 1997 when JEMS joined with the city of Webb City to provide advanced life support services. At that time, the Joplin-based service changed from JEMS to METS, a private operation.

Smith said positions with METS involve three levels of training. The entry level training is a course that takes about six months to complete. The next level is EMT advanced, which includes IV therapy, medications and heart monitor use, and that is six months. Paramedic training takes another year and a half, bringing total training to two years, Smith said.

METS is not seeing the severity of personnel turnover that some other first responder organizations have experienced.

"We've been pretty fortunate in that even though we've had some turnover, we've been able to fill those positions," Smith said. "We currently have a full-time position that's open that we are trying to fill, but looking at the surrounding areas and some of the issues with other jobs, I feel we are pretty fortunate to just have that."

There are 30 part-time employees who can fill in when there is an open position.

At Wednesday's ceremony, a representative of the office of state Sen. Bill White, R-Joplin, and state Reps. Bob Bromley, R-Carl Junction, and Lane Roberts, R-Joplin, attended a ceremony to deliver legislative resolutions saluting METS for its service.

"This week we are celebrating all the emergency workers and the things they do for us," Bromley said of the observance of First Responder Week as well as the anniversary of METS.

"A lot of times we take it for granted when we see an ambulance going down the road because it's not coming to us," he said. "But I can assure you that everybody appreciates what this group of people does for us. When you need to call 911, we are very fortunate in this area that someone is going to answer the call."

One of those who respond, Maddie Gaddis, started as an EMT in 2019 when she was age 18. She said it is a career for women as well as men.

"You can get a lot of good experience being on the ambulance," she said. "Yes, it's pretty hard. There will be some hard days. But I think if you are willing to try and willing to learn, it would be a good job for anybody."

Jackie O'Connell, a paramedic, has been working for the service about five years.

"It's been great," she said. "Before this I planned on doing nursing school and then I kind of fell into EMS instead, and I have loved it ever since. Now I am going on and working in the education part of it" to help others learn that it is a rewarding career.

Another paramedic with 30 years of experience achieved what really was a childhood interest inspired by the 1970s television show "Emergency!"

"I wanted to be a paramedic-firefighter and pretended to be a paramedic-firefighter as a kid" because of the TV show, said Ike Isenhower of Neosho. "Eventually when I got to college I was going to be a teacher, but I kind of fell out of that" as a college freshman.

The father of a friend of his served as a volunteer firefighter, so he and his friend signed up for that.

"Through the fire department, I went to EMT and paramedic school, and I've been doing it ever since," Isenhower said.

That path also led him back into teaching, and he has taught paramedic classes at Crowder College for nine years now.