The Extra Mile 'Extraordinary people doing extraordinary things'
Amy Milde, sits at her desk where she works every Monday in the Libby Volunteer Ambulance office. “I get up at 5 in the morning and drive here in my pajamas,” she said. (Luke Hollister/The Western News)
Amy Milde stands in the back of one of Libby’s ambulances, Monday. Sometimes there is just one person driving and one in back, she said. (Luke Hollister/The Western News)
Amy Milde shuts an ambulance door, Monday at the Libby Volunteer Ambulance barn. “When they call that ambulance, that’s literally the worst day of their life,” she said. It feels good to provide any level of comfort for those in need. (Luke Hollister/The Western News)
Amy Milde shows the radio she uses when being called in, Monday at the Libby Volunteer Ambulance building. “I pretty much have the radio with me all the time,” she said. (Luke Hollister/The Western News)
With a 52 hour work week — not including time spent studying for classes, being a single mom or on call — Amy Milde is dedicated to keeping Libby’s 24-hour emergency service alive.
She has worked for Libby and Troy’s volunteer ambulance services for the past couple years, and wishes she could have started much sooner.
“My daughter is pretty understanding,” she said. “We spend time, whenever we can.”
The sacrifice Milde makes is time.
“I pretty much have the radio with me all the time,” she said.
By all the time, she means a roughly 400-hour deficit, shared among volunteers, each month, due to low staffing. It is a load all the volunteers take a piece from, in addition to their individual 48 hours of required volunteer time a month.
Even when Milde is at Cabinet Peaks Medical Center, working in urgent care, she has her pager with her. And with a lack of volunteers, extra help is sometimes needed to provide 24-hour 911 service for south Lincoln County.
Working at the hospital’s ER, admitting patients, exposed her to the jobs EMTs do, she said.
Milde told herself, “wow, I want to do that.”
The first time being in the back of an ambulance, when the sirens turned on, something inside of her “clicked,” she said. In the moment, Milde knew being an emergency provider is what she was meant to do.
There was a rush of excitement, she said.
Part of her reason for loving the job is because of Lincoln County’s community, she said. There is a good community here and it is worth taking care of.
“We leave our family because we want to help the community,” she said.
Being a mom and working in EMS is a balancing act.
Some days are hard, she said. On one of her calls, Milde went to the scene of a teenager in a motorcycle accident.
The teen, in critical condition, was about the same age as her own son, she said. It is hard to separate the fact that it could have been your own child on the stretcher.
“That particular day I came home and hugged my son and cried,” she said. “You can’t help but put yourself in the other parent’s shoes.”
Milde said she can sometimes get attached to her patients. The more attached one gets, the harder it can be.
At the same time, it feels good to be a familiar face for the family in need, she said. When they call for an ambulance, it is literally the worst day of their lives.
“There’s days when you go on a CPR call and it’s somebody you know,” she said. Emotionally separating oneself to help the patient and their family is challenging.
It is especially challenging if the 911 call happens in the middle of the night and does not allow for a proper amount of time to recover before showing up for work the next day, she said.
Milde leaves Troy for Libby’s ambulance barn early every Monday and stays for the day. “I get up at 5 in the morning and drive here in my pajamas,” she said.
Tuesday through Friday she works 10-hour days at the hospital. Milde said she also studies a bit every night and is constantly reading research journals for prerequisite classes.
Milde admitted, most days, she probably does function on some level of exhaustion. “Your body gets used to it after a while.”
Her current goal is to become a licensed practical nurse, and she eventually plans to be a registered nurse.
Vincent Brown, an EMT training officer who is in his ninth year as an LVA member, said Milde brings good experience and level-headedness to her calls.
Milde has only been working here for a couple of years, but she works like she has been around for five, he said.
One of the reasons for hiring Milde is because of her enthusiasm, he said. She is also kind to her patients and always gives them the benefit of the doubt.
Staff members, such as Milde, are not just required to fulfill their 48 hours of volunteer time a month, but also need to go to business meetings and trainings every month, he said. Those meetings can have staffers going home late at night.
Providing 24/7 coverage is the biggest longstanding challenge, he said. It is a daily grind and takes away from family time.
Staffers work “way over what’s required,” he said. All of the members here have, so to say, better things to do.
“It takes and takes and takes,” he said.
Milde is a good example of what volunteers here are, he said.
Penny Kyes, a working partner with Milde and an LVA volunteer for roughly 25 years, said Milde is a good, “happy-go-lucky-lady” and is fun to be around.
She is definitely a part of the LVA family, said Kyes.
In the back of Libby’s ambulance barn, surrounded by emergency trucks, Milde read off a quote.
“Extraordinary people doing extraordinary things,” she said. That saying, on the back doors of the ambulance, means a lot.