Flathead teen turns emergency lights on for first responders

Yahoo

19-05-2025

May 19—Emergency medical services are not designated as essential, unlike firefighters or police, which means Montana isn't required to fund them.
A resolution that started as a Flathead High School student's class project may change that. The resolution calls for a statewide study of emergency medical services to assess capabilities, needs, future demand and funding mechanisms.
Flathead senior Kaylee Hampton, 17, helped draft the resolution as a political engagement project for her International Baccalaureate Global Politics class. The class is taught by Ryan Lee.
"It started with just the proposal sheet from my global politics class, where I said I wanted to find ways to make funding more equitable in fire departments. From there, we devised a plan, figuring out who I needed to get a hold of, and sort of the route I wanted to go," Hampton said.
She contacted Republican Sen. John Fuller of Kalispell, who sponsored the joint resolution, for guidance. Fuller is a former Flathead High School teacher.
"He worked with me and told me that I could help draft a resolution for it. So, I drafted it myself. I got the go-ahead from my teacher, and from him [Fuller] and then we sent it off to the Senate Committee on Health," she said.
Once she sent the draft off, a wave of relief washed over the ambitious senior who thanks to a "very concise schedule" and "really great family and friends" was able to carve out time to write drafts of the draft while going to school and spending nearly every other weekend competing in extracurriculars in addition to completing scholarship applications.
The study will look at the implications of recognizing emergency medical services as a statewide essential service and look at anticipated future demands for services over the next five years, according to the resolution.
WHILE MANY of her friends pursued ideas related to Ukraine, Hampton opted to do the project because it hit close to home.
With a father working as a firefighter and paramedic for the Bigfork Fire Department and the Lakeside Quick Response Unit, Hampton learned firsthand the critical role EMS provides to Montana's rural communities and cities.
"I think often we think of fire departments as just fire. When I realized that literally about 85% of his job is EMS-related ... that's what tells me it's so important," Hampton said.
Also at her disposal was an understanding of the Legislative process. Hampton has three years of experience competing in Legislative Debate under coach Kelli Rosenquist on Flathead's speech and debate team.
"I've had the training to write resolutions and do mock legislation, and so competing in that gave me a really good background on what's going on," she said.
As with preparing for a productive debate, Hampton approached the project with meticulousness, research, resolve, confidence and patience — following the resolution and providing testimony as it made its way through the Legislature from November 2024, when a draft was assigned, to being signed by the Speaker of the House and Senate President at the beginning of May.
Addressing the Senate Public Health, Welfare and Safety committee at the state Capitol March 19 was both scary and exhilarating, she said.
"I've been wanting to do this since I started legislative debate when I was a sophomore. It wasn't this exact resolution, but I was like, I just got to get a bill passed. I really want to do it," she said.
AFTER RESEARCHING the issue and interviewing local fire department chiefs in Bigfork, South Kalispell and Smith Valley, where her father started out as a volunteer, she learned that not having the "essential" designation is a nationwide concern. Primarily relying on money from local governments means that underfunded communities may exacerbate health disparities, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"A lot of the experiences I'm seeing within my valley show the strains are just getting pretty extreme. They'll get funding for fire, but they're not getting near enough for what 85% of their job really is," she said.
Smith Valley Fire Chief Amy Beick said the department is proud of Hampton's efforts to resurrect a decades-old issue.
"She's just very talented and ambitious," Beick said.
"As far as the study, we are very excited to see a study done on EMS services at the state level. We are very confident they will find sufficient evidence to make EMS a necessary service, and that's long overdue," she said.
Beick said her department currently funds EMS through ambulance billing revenue. Each time an individual is transported by ambulance, Medicare, Medicaid, or private insurance is billed, but it doesn't always make ends meet. Last year, the department had 730 calls for service, and of that, 569 were EMS-related.
"Seventy-eight percent of our call volume is medical," Beick said, noting that the fire department is not alone in the high volume of medical calls. "And so, nine years ago, our board decided we can't do that to our mutual aid [fire departments]. So, they went and purchased a used ambulance, and they figured out how to staff it and equip it."
Prior to buying the ambulance, Smith Valley relied on Kalispell, which means traveling a farther distance and a longer response time. As the population continues to grow, so does the call volume, and Smith Valley made the switch to contracting with a private ambulance company.
"But there's no money in EMS. There's no funding for EMS, so they couldn't afford to keep their doors open and went out of business. And so that left a hole for us," Beick said. "Who's going to transport? Do we just rely on mutual aid for all of our EMS calls, which isn't fair."
The study is set to conclude in September 2026, with results reported to the 70th Legislature.
REFLECTING ON the broader impact of her project and the importance of youth involvement in the legislative process, Hampton encourages her peers to "take the leap" by getting involved.
"Just remember that you have friends around you, you have teachers around you who are willing to support you," she said, drawing from her own experience.
She said it's an empowering experience to realize constituents can effect change.
"I've always been like, OK, well, I can be upset about it, or I can make the change. I think that it's really empowering to be like, OK, yeah, this is a democracy. I have the complete power to get a hold of my representative and to see if I can do something and try to make that change,"
She said the experience was a big deal that not only demonstrated her capabilities but also speaks to the support and guidance of her mentors, coaches and teachers.
"Getting to show my mentees that it's possible for teenagers to do things like this, I hope, is empowering to them too," she said.
Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or [e-mail].