Rural EMS Continue To Struggle While Youth Impact Grants Boost Interest In Ag

Nearly half of the state's ambulance services struggle with around-the-clock staffing.  Response times in remote areas can exceed 30 minutes, and over 78% of rural agencies rely heavily on mutual aid because local crews are unavailable or depleted.  This is the life of everyday emergency responders like Holly Ellickson.  Elllickson is the chief of the EMS for Cross Plains.  While considered a suburb of Madison, Ellickson still ends up responding to farm accidents.  In an effort to prepare for the fall harvest and potential farm calls, Ellickson is training her staff on how to respond.  She says things have changed in the last 20 years.  Now her volunteers seldom have had any exposure to a working farm.  That means she needs to train them on how to protect themselves from farm dangers, while they respond to injured people on that farm.  Pam Jahnke learns more.Dry today but more showers are in the forecast.  Stu Muck says while temperatures may seem cooler for August, there is heat that will be rebuilding.The 33rd Pro Farmer Crop Tour launches today.  Andy Peterson visits with Chip Flory, one of the agronomist' that will be hitting the trail to find out what the farm fields hold.  Flory says that he expects it could be difficult to see differences between non-irrigated and irrigated fields in some regions.Ethan Fitzgerald from Holman is one of the inaugural recipients in the Youth Impact Grant program.  It launched at the WI State Fair's Governor's Blue Ribbon Livestock auction.  Fitzgerald tells Pam Jahnke that the $1,500 helped him expand his farming operation.  As a first generation farmer, he says any help is welcome.  He's getting plenty too.  Fitzgerald says that other farmers, university staff and breed organizations have all reached out to help him advance his farming operation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.