The Wellesley Island Volunteer Fire Department provides emergency medical services to the residents and visitors to Wellesley Island and mutual aid to our neighbors on both sides of the border. We provide these services at no cost to the users. Our funding is provided by donations, and contracts with the towns of Orleans and Alexandria. We have no paid staff and our volunteers respond to requests for service from our homes and businesses. We have provided this service uninterrupted since 1979.

In a Sept. 27 Times article your figures reflect that Thousand Islands Emergency Rescue Service was called to Wellesley Island 34 times in the past 24 months. These figures are not a true reflection of the facts. In most cases, the Wellesley Island Fire Department never requested that a TIERS ambulance be called. They are called because of a Jefferson County dispatch policy that activates the next closest available ambulance if we don't call out within four minutes. Because we are all volunteers and respond from our homes, that becomes impossible many times especially at night. In most cases we cancel the TIERS response within minutes, but that nonresponse by TIERS counts into your statistics and makes it look like the Wellesley Island Fire Department did not answer 34 calls.

TIERS is a great organization and occasionally we utilize them when our Advanced Life Support providers are not available, or if we are out on a call and have a second request for service. It is very rare for us not to have available staff to provide service, but occasionally it happens and we are glad that TIERS is available. The taxpayers on Wellesley Island contribute tens of thousands of dollars each year in our town taxes that support TIERS and we are glad that we have this organization in the northern part of Jefferson County.

The Wellesley Island Fire Department has been called by TIERS 22 times in the last 24 months and asked to stand by while the TIERS ambulances were out on calls. In many cases they travel outside the towns of Orleans and Clayton. In just the past two months we have provided patient care and transport in their area operations twice without any charge to the patients or to TIERS. We are happy to help out. I hope it's mutual.

In closing, a major factor in some of these calls is the Jefferson County dispatch policy. I don't think that many volunteers responding from home can meet this standard. If we continue to follow this policy, many agencies including TIERS will be put in financial jeopardy. Many other EMS services are also feeling the increased call volume due to this policy. I hope we can work with Jefferson County and TIERS to come up with a resolution to this situation. The other factor is lack of response by the home agency, and that is because of the lack of volunteers. Every fire and EMS agency in Northern New York needs volunteers. So if you want to help out, contact the emergency service organization in your town and volunteer. I am sure they have a job for you.

Robert Markert

Wellesley Island

The writer is fire chief for the Wellesley Island Volunteer Fire Department.