Valerie White Named EMS Provider of the Year

Valerie White, a volunteer for the Community Ambulance Company of Sayville since 2007, was honored on Wednesday by the Firemen's Association of the State of New York as EMS Provider of the Year.

In her over three years with the organization, White has risen to the rank of Operational Secretary, where she oversees and enforces scheduling for all active volunteers.

Last fall, White went above and beyond her job description and showed true heroism on an EMS alarm in which she placed her own life at risk to help a perfect stranger.

Community Ambulance was dispatched to an alarm at a residence in the fall of 2009 when a two-person crew, consisting of White as the EMT in charge and her partner, a dedicated driver of the ambulance crew, responded to the scene and intended to transport a female patient, who appeared to be in distress, to a local hospital.

In route to Southside Hospital, the ambulance was traveling approximately 65 MPH along Sunrise Highway when the patient jumped up and moved to the back door of the ambulance. The patient then opened the back door and tried to step out of the ambulance onto the highway, directly in the path of traffic.

White then jumped up, secured her right foot to the wheel area of the stretcher, grabbed the patient's shirt in order to stop her and yelled for the driver to pull over. She then was able to pull the patient back into the ambulance, at which point the patient punched White in the abdomen several times.

The operator of the ambulance notified the dispatcher via mobile radio that police were needed immediately. The patient then got up to flee the parked ambulance. White once again grabbed the patient's shirt to stop her from running into oncoming traffic, and then the patient tried to push White onto the roadway before wrestling out of her shirt and fleeing across the express portion of the highway. Law enforcement units arrived shortly after and were able to locate and detain the patient further down the highway.

"Valerie White is truly deserving of the FASNY EMS Provider of the Year Award," said Jamie Atkinson, Chief of the Community Ambulance Company in his letter of recommendation for White. "Her performance was exceptional – she took actions that most people would have never been called upon to take and she did it solely to help another human being. She literally hung from the back of an ambulance traveling more than 60 miles per hour along a busy highway in order to save a woman's life. White exercised true heroism by placing her own life at risk in order to help a patient that was in her care and also prevented untold injuries from happening."

Atkinson stressed that White is a volunteer. "White is not paid to do what she does for Community Ambulance, but volunteers her own personal time. White was volunteering her time during this call on a day that was not her regular duty slot. Furthermore, she gives up time with her family and friends to answer to EMS alarms on a regular basis."

At the ceremony, White thanked all those associated with the award and said she was proud to be the first female and first non-fire department member to receive this honor. She credited her mother for summing up the events best. "That is great Valerie, but don't do it again," she told her daughter.

The Firemen's Association of the State of New York, which was founded in 1872, represents the interests of the more than 130,000 volunteer firefighters and emergency medical personnel in New York State.