The recent decision to switch from an all-volunteer rescue squad in Goshen to having full-time career emergency service staff was a topic of discussion at last week’s Goshen Town Council meeting, among both members of the council and citizens who were in attendance.
Vice-Mayor Steve Bickley first broached the subject while asking council members to review the content of a the most recent edition of a newsletter that the town sends to its residents in which they highlight things going on in the town. In addition to the situation with the rescue squad, the edition that was reviewed at the June 9 meeting also included updates on the plans for the town community center, a progress reports on several grants the town has applied for to help pay for a variety of projects in town, and an announcement of the town’s upcoming summer event later this month.
In regards to the situation with the rescue squad, Bickley said that he felt that the change is “a good thing for the town, in my view.” He specifically cited the fact that none of the volunteers at the Goshen First Aid Crew are certified as EMT-A, meaning they can administer more advanced lifesaving procedures. He noted that all of the volunteers do have some sort of certification, either as an EMT-B which allows them to administer basic assistance, as ambulance drivers, or as a trainee for one or the other of those certifications. Later in the meeting, he acknowledged that the biggest issue with the volunteer squad wasn’t a lack of dedication, but rather the fact that the state’s requirements for the emergency services certifications have changed.
“You take a person who works a job, has a family, has a life, and volunteers [and] it’s really hard to spend the amount of time required not only to maintain those qualifications, but to upgrade them,” he said. “It’s nearly impossible to do on volunteer hours, and it’s just been getting worse. They’ve just kept piling on requirements.”
During his initial remarks, Bickley also cited concerns about response times from the volunteer rescue squad. While the squad has responded to all but 36 of the 228 calls it was dispatched on between April 2025 and April 2026, according to data from Rockbridge County Fire-Rescue – with most of the those ‘failure to respond’ calls being the result of the Goshen First Aid Crew being released from the call before arriving on scene, according to County Fire Chief Nathan Ramsey – the squad recorded 15 calls where they had a delayed response, meaning it took more than 10 minutes after the initial dispatch to arrive on scene.
In the council meeting, Bickley said there had been an incident the week before where a woman had fallen on the sidewalk outside of the town office and had “busted her head up real bad,” which resulted in a call to 911. Bickley said it took 28 minutes for an ambulance from the Goshen First Aid Crew to arrive, despite the squad’s building being just down the street from the town office.
“If we had the paid paramedics in the fire station, it probably would have taken two or three minutes,” he said.
During the public comments at the end of the meeting, Goshen resident Lisa Conner said that she, too, felt that having paid EMS staff “available all the time” would be good for the town’s aging population, but also acknowledged that not everyone in town felt the same way.
“We need to be mindful that there are some people that are really upset about it,” she said. “That’s a historic point for a lot of people. It’s been in the community for 60 years, [and] a lot of them grew up going there. It’s okay for us to say ‘I think having paid staff is great,’ but it’s taking another chunk out of our community in a way.”
The Goshen First Aid Crew has started a petition on change. org to “keep the Goshen First Aid Crew operational” and have posted on their Facebook page asking people to sign it and support them. As of press time Tuesday, the petition had garnered 146 signatures.
