NASHUA -- After spending 27 days helping ravaged Texas towns recover from Hurricane Rita, two area paramedics will return to the Granite State today.
"We're ready to come home. I'm tired of being in my uniform. I'm tired of being in my truck," said paramedic Gail O'Halloran of Merrimack, who was reached by cell phone yesterday.
Chris Stawasz, executive director of Rockingham Ambulance, selected Wes Bartlett, 29, of Newton and O'Halloran, 51, from two dozen who volunteered. The pair began the long drive from Nashua to Reliant Stadium in Houston on Sept. 22. The stadium was used as a staging ground.
"They were busy. They busted their hump down there," Stawasz said, noting the paramedics ran out of medication and had to be restocked.
Forced to sleep in the back of their ambulance and on cots in public buildings, Bartlett and O'Halloran provided help to several devastated towns.
They provided aid in Orange, Texas, where 18 tornadoes hit in connection with Rita. They also provided the emergency 911 service in Lumberton, Texas, O'Halloran said.
Lumberton's first-responders are all volunteers, O'Halloran said, and paramedics from throughout the country who traveled to the region are responding to the calls so the locals can tend to their damaged homes.
Most of the 911 calls deal with tractor and chainsaw accidents, she said. Many of the calls are also to provide treatment for people who fell from their roofs as they attempted to remove debris.
Bartlett and O'Halloran have also aided members of the U.S. Coast Guard who have worked themselves to dehydration.
"They don't know when to stop. We are keeping them on their feet," O'Halloran said.
With Hurricane Wilma -- a powerful Category 5 storm -- threatening Mexico and southern Florida, Rockingham Ambulance may have to keep two paramedics deployed, Stawasz said.
"(FEMA) was going to release them (Wednesday) at one o'clock. But when we called, they said we're not releasing them," he said.
Rockingham ambulance flew paramedic Chris Richards to Texas yesterday to drive the ambulance back to New Hampshire.
If FEMA needs the paramedics to respond to Hurricane Wilma, Richards will stay and another local EMT will be flown down, Stawasz said.
FEMA is paying for having the paramedics and the ambulance deployed, he said.
Bartlett and O'Halloran will land at Manchester Airport today at 4:30 p.m.
