Lone officer also a medic
Staff writer
Peabody’s lone police officer soon will have another job while he patrols the town.
Charles Walker is expected to join Marion County Emergency Medical Service as a volunteer first responder, allowing him to provide additional medical care while an ambulance is en route.
Walker will undergo a background check and physical and complete paperwork, ambulance director Mickey Price said.
He is already certified as an advanced EMT. When he is working as a Peabody officer, dispatchers will be able to send him to medical calls if police duties permit.
The arrangement formalizes something Walker already has been doing.
Walker arrived within about a minute of hearing an ambulance dispatched last week for a man bleeding severely from his lower leg at Westview Manor.
The bleeding wasn’t stopping. Walker applied a tourniquet, then a pressure bandage that stopped it. He lay the man flat, elevated his feet, kept him warm, and kept him talking to treat him for shock.
Hillsboro ambulance arrived 19 minutes after being dispatched, Price said.
“I think he probably did a world of good,” Price said.
The man had lost a significant amount of blood, and Walker “probably stopped him from going into true hypovolemic shock.”
Walker has responded to four or five medical calls while on duty in the past three months.
He also helped a 71-year-old woman who fell Aug. 25, though she declined an ambulance after Walker helped her to her feet.
Walker has been an advanced EMT for nine years and previously worked part-time for Marion County EMS.
He now carries basic bleeding-control supplies, and Peabody police vehicles have automatic external defibrillators. Marion County EMS likely will provide him a basic life-support kit and oxygen.
He will be able to start IVs and administer medication within his certification while assisting paramedics, Price said.
The additional first responder could be particularly valuable in Peabody, which has no ambulance station.
Peabody calls generally are answered from Hillsboro, Price said.
EMS shoots for response times of 20 minutes or less, although rural roads and deer traffic can slow ambulances.
“I’d rather they get there in 23 minutes than hit a deer and not get there at all,” Price said.
Walker is not intended to replace ambulance coverage, Price said. The county instead is trying to strengthen first response in outlying communities.
Peabody and Florence are “a little light” on first responders, he said.
First responders can assess patients, administer oxygen, and control bleeding while an ambulance is en route.
“They can begin that process so when our paramedics show up, we’re just a little bit further along in the process,” Price said.
Walker responds to medical calls for a simple reason.
“Because the community needs it,” he said. “It’s got zero to do with me or the paycheck. It’s all about the people.”
He brushed aside suggestions that his combination of police and medical work makes him a “super cop.”
“I wouldn’t call me a super cop,” Walker said. “I’m just me doing me, man.”