To the editor:
Each time I see the Allen County commissioners want to remove the Iola ambulances from the Iola Fire Department it gets me very upset. I am a widow of a fireman who spent 18 years of his life as a fireman and EMT, which they were called then.
I do NOT think that someone from Humboldt or another town should be trying to take it away from the Iola Fire Department. You have your own ambulance right in Humboldt. I know the county has its in Iola, too. However, they make runs to Wichita, Topeka, and wherever a patient needs to go to a larger hospital.
The Iola Fire Department does NOT take its ambulances out of town. I feel much safer knowing they are in town and will be right to my house within minutes. I know because they picked me up when I fell and broke by ankle and were right by my side in a matter of minutes. We also need to keep a full-time fire department. Iola is a large enough town that we can NOT have just a volunteer one.
When the Iola Fire Department firemen was the only ones in town who drove the ambulances we did not have to have several buildings to keep all the vehicles, etc. that the county now has. I am sure that all that upkeep is quite expensive.
Thank you for letting me say what I think.
Everyone has a right to their thoughts, too.
Lavon R. Johnson,
Iola, Kan.
