Rustburg rescue squad building bigger quarters

The sleeping quarters for Rustburg Volunteer Rescue Squad members are in a small room, crammed with a bunk day bed, two sofas, a coffee table made from a backboard and a television mounted on the wall.

There’s little room to walk between the pieces of furniture, the couches aren’t comfortable for sleeping and there is no privacy.

So the volunteers have embarked on a building project. The new space will have a day room for squad members waiting for calls as well as separate sleeping quarters for men and women.

The expansion, which totals $400,000, is already under construction. The squad’s captain, Chris Leebrick, said the squad took out a loan to fund the construction. He is now trying to raise the money to pay off that loan as soon as possible, fearing that donations may not be enough to make the debt payments if economic conditions don’t improve.

So far, the rescue squad has raised $230,000, Leebrick said.

“This is the first time we have ever had to borrow any money,” Leebrick said. “We are not guaranteed income. It’s all donations.”

The new construction will provide volunteers with better sleeping areas, segregated by gender, making it more comfortable for volunteers to spend the night at the station, said Leebrick.

Jason Stroud, Campbell County’s Emergency services manager, said emergency response times are reduced when squad members can sleep at the station, because the drive time to the station to get in an ambulance is eliminated. Those saved minutes could save lives.

“We want to provide the most efficient, quickest service we can to the community when they call 911,” Stroud said. “If they are able to step out of bed and respond to a call, it cuts down response times tremendously.”

The large training room under construction will provide first responders from across the county with a central place for classroom training, Stroud said. The new training room will comfortably hold 70 compared to cramming 20 in the existing space.

The Rustburg Rescue Squad has 41 members that run some 1,300 calls per year.

The building has not been renovated since its construction in 1984, Leebrick said.

“We have just outgrown it,” Leebrick said. “It is so small and outdated.”

The station has no room for storage so items end up stacked in corners in the ambulance bay, leaving little walking space, Leebrick said.

The squad is primarily funded through donations, though some money comes through Campbell County’s billing for ambulance transport.

 

Jill Nance/The News & Advance

Kevin Chapman cleans one of the Ambulances while volunteers at the Rustburg Rescue Squad. A new building is in construction for the EMS workers.