There were more than 900 occasions during 2020 when someone in or around Humboldt needed the help of trained emergency medical personnel.

The ambulance service of Humboldt County Memorial Hospital responded to every one of those 916 instances with a mainly volunteer crew. Think about that for a second: ambulances responded 916 times and most of those times the crew members aboard were folks who took time away from their lives, families and jobs to go help someone they probably didn’t know.

It’s no surprise than that the hospital’s ambulance unit recently received the Volunteer Service of the Year for 2020 award from the Iowa Emergency Medical Services Association.

The service received that honor three times previously – in 2000, 2002, and 2012 – which shows how consistently good the unit is.

The ambulance crew has 31 members. There are four full-time employees. That means the majority of the crew, 27 people, are volunteers.

They are people who willingly take on the challenge of training to provide professional care and then respond to calls at all hours of the day in all kinds of weather. They experience the joy of saving lives, but they also witness some pretty grim things. While training and responding to calls, they miss precious time with their families.

The volunteers of the Humboldt County Memorial Hospital ambulance service are an outstanding group who deserve this award. We congratulate them.