June 10--POTEAU -- Emergency Medical Services of LeFlore County paramedic Anthony Stankewitz loves the challenges and fast decisions required by his job.
"I like the stress of it. I live off it," Stankewitz said, laughing.
In April, Stankewitz, 22, of Spiro received the 2012 Oklahoma Paramedic of the Year Award. What makes it most meaningful to him, he said, is that he was nominated and selected by his peers.
Stankewitz' boss, EMS of LeFlore County Executive Director David Grovdahl, not only nominated Stankewitz for the award, but just promoted him to shift supervisor of the EMS station at Poteau.
"Anthony has been one of those people who believe their education is just beginning, and he's absolutely devoured any educational opportunity he's found. ... From a clinical perspective, he is probably one of the smartest paramedics we have. He is very knowledgeable, ... he has been very focused, right out of school on his first job," Grovdahl said.
That's high praise from the head of an EMS agency that in March was named one of the Top 10 Innovators in EMS in the nation for 2012.
The Journal of Emergency Medical Services in partnership with Physio-Control, a global provider of emergency medical response technologies, announced the awards on March 7, citing Grovdahl's aggressive revamping of the local EMS to improve service and patient care in the "super rural" county through technology and better educational services. The award citation notes that EMS of LeFlore County improved its patient "save rates" from 6 percent to 40 percent and had not experienced a failed respiratory intubation among the almost 200 its staff performed over the past three years.
The Journal of Emergency Medical Services ranked the local EMS' efforts among those of large urban area-serving departments including Miami-Dade, Fla., and Fort Worth, Texas.
Stankewitz earned his emergency management technician certification from Kiamichi Technology Center in 2007, a year before he graduated from Spiro High School. He joined LeFlore EMS in November 2009.
"My first real job. I grew up here, I guess," Stankewitz said.
He went to paramedic school at Kiamichi in 2010, and is now studying for an associate degree, also in emergency medical services, at Oklahoma State University at Oklahoma City.
Stankewitz said the LeFlore EMS works six ambulances daily from five stations throughout the county. He oversees a 12-member crew, and the department has 34 medics overall.
Stankewitz' duties include teaching. On a typical day, the crew members arrive, gets a report from the off-going crew, inventory the ambulance they'll be using, change out any supplies that need to be changed, "and wait for it" -- the call for emergency transport.
Stankewitz estimates that in a typical day he'll go on four calls, although he's never noted any pattern to the calls. Because the county is so rural, it is not uncommon to spend two hours with a patient, he said.
Stankewitz said in his down time between calls he fields a lot of telephone calls, answers a lot of questions and does a lot of education work.
He had been working 12-hour shifts, and says he now is adjusting to 24-hour shifts.
The Poteau station was built for two full-time EMS crews and includes four private sleeping quarters, a full kitchen, small recliner-equipped living room, training, storage and maintenance rooms, and the ambulance bay, which houses ambulances stocked for 12-hour and 24-hour shifts. Built as a public safety building and owned by the county's 911 department, the station also houses 911 dispatchers, a Highway Patrol sub-office, the county Department of Emergency Management and the 911 sign-making shop.
Why choose an emergency medical services career?
"I don't know. Since I was little I always wanted to do it, so I did it," Stankewitz said.
His favorite part?
"In this system, I think we're given a lot of autonomy, medicine-wise, so the challenge of autonomy," he said.
The toughest part?
"I think the hours, the schedule, how much it affects you in the outside world. ... It is one of those jobs that consumes every part of your life, whether you're here or not, you're still working," Stankewitz said.
What would you want people to know about EMS services?
"I guess that it's more than what people see at the hospital. There's a lot more medicine, a lot more high-risk skills. There's a lot more to it than just giving somebody a ride," Stankewitz said.
Stankewitz rises to challenges on and off the job, Grovdahl said, noting that he battled cancer twice.
Stankewitz said he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma in January 2011 and underwent treatment for it at Fort Smith for the rest of that year. The cancer recurred six months later, and he went to Oklahoma City for continued treatment, including a stem cell/bone marrow transplant. Stankewitz said he's had a good bill of health since.
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©2013 Times Record (Fort Smith, Ark.)
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