\Of all the places Steven Carley has lived and worked, McComb seems like a random spot for him to end up making a career.
The Lake Charles, La., native was raised in Pittsburgh and served as a civilian contractor working as a medic with military service members serving overseas after the 9/11 terror attacks.
“By far the best job I’ve ever done,” he told the McComb Exchange Club last week. “I learned how to work with different nationalities, different languages, different customs, different people.”
He went through the University of Alabama-Hunts-ville’s paramedic program, took a job as a paramedic in Jackson and worked there for eight years. After that he went to work with Hattiesburg-based AAA Ambulance, which stationed him in McComb.
After spending some time away from Southwest Mississippi, he’s back as the supervisor of ambulance operations in the company’s local service area, which includes Pike and Walthall counties.
“I saw the potential for what I could do for the folks here,” Carley said. “I’m looking at it as still in the honeymoon phase with everyone, but so far so good.”
Carley said ambulances in the area respond to as few as 12 to a more harried 60 calls for service on an average day.
“That’s an extreme day, but it happens on occasion,” he said.
AAA runs three ambulances in McComb around the clock and has another stationed in Magnolia. An additional ambulance runs in the area from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, Carley said.
“Part of the reason we have that ambulance in Magnolia is to help with the response time in that part of the county,” Carley said.
The company has 18 full-time employees and some part-timers as well, many of whom have taken EMT courses at Southwest Mississippi Community College’s Regional Workforce Training Center.
Carley said life as a paramedic can be unpredictable, as they have to deal with major trauma cases and other calls in which a person’s condition might be so minor that there’s technically not a medical emergency. Even so, those patients receive treatment, and sometimes a ride to the hospital all the same.
“Legally we cannot discourage people from going. It would be too much of a liability issue,” he said.
Some of the calls include medical transfers, including taking dialysis patients and nursing home residents for treatment. Carley recalled an EMT instructor telling him that paramedics need to have as much of a heart for handling that aspect of the job as the more traumatic life-and-death calls, considering how frequently transfers occur.
Carley noted that Pike County residents started receiving free air ambulance coverage from the county last year.
“They have an excellent program here,” he said.
He said paramedics on the scene of an emergency make the decision whether to call the helicopter.
“The helicopter more or less in an emergency situation responds to us,” Carley said. “We call for them and they are standing by.”
Working as a paramedic is a rewarding if not demanding career, and it’s certainly not for everyone, Carley said.
When a new trainee comes to work for AAA, “the first thing I do is try to talk you out of it,” he said.
That’s because the job can be emotionally taxing.
“One of the ways I manage doing work like this is not remembering very much,” he said.
The job gives a unique insight into people and their community that many walks of life may not provide, Carley said.
“The things we see and learn about people, I think it’s very valuable,” he said. “It’s very personal. You’re walking into their houses, seeing how their families are.”
