AMBULANCES MAKE SPECIAL DELIVERIES

ADVANCE -- An ambulance outside a residence on a holiday is usually not good news.

But for the 14 years, the Stoddard County Emergency Medical Service ambulances have been delivering good cheer on Thanksgiving by providing rides for nursing home residents to their families' homes.

The service, Operation Home for the Holidays, is free to nursing home patients who are unable to get around or who need the special mobility that an ambulance can provide.

Billie Finnigan of Advance said Home for the Holidays provides her mother, 90-year-old Nona Dunn, the only opportunity she has to come home.

"This helps so much," Finnigan said. "Because to get her home we'd have to bring her in the wheelchair or get her into the car, and it's hard to get her in the car."

Finnigan visits her mother frequently at the nursing home but it's not like having her home.

"This was really nice," she said. "She got to spend it with all the family. And she ate and ate and ate. It's wonderful of them to furnish this service. It's really beyond the call of duty."

Debby Hess, a licensed practicing nurse at the Advance Nursing Home, said Home for the Holidays lets many people go home who would be unable to otherwise. Three of Advance Nursing Home's residents went home through the project.

"Usually the ones who go home are the ones that get the most visitors anyway," Hess said. "But they don't get to go home. They usually come back from this tired and full."

Stoddard County EMS project coordinator Monti Cooper said taking some patients from the nursing home and taking them home can be stressful.

"It can be rough on them sometimes to leave their routine," Cooper said. "But we've never had any problems arise and they all say it's worth it."

Cooper said all four of the service's ambulances are used throughout the county to transport approximately 14 nursing home residents. There is a backup ambulance that can be called out if an emergency call comes up, but generally freeing up an ambulance on short notice is not difficult.

"An emergency definitely takes priority," she said. "But we're used to that. We're a pretty busy district."

Stoddard County paramedic Damon Leach and emergency medical technician Stephane Poole were on duty in Advance Thursday for their first Operation Home for the Holidays.

"It makes the holidays easier for us," Poole said. "You see families when they're in there cooking and at least you're stuck in a little bitty ambulance shed. It makes you feel better."

Leach said this project is much better than the usual types of transports the ambulance service has to makes.

"We get to actually talk to them and see how they're doing," he said. "Most of them will be at home around five or six hours, if it would be more than that it might be too much for them.

"I don't think we'll have any problems. As long as they didn't eat too much and we don't bounce around the ambulance too much."