Longwood retirement community honors Plum EMS

Residents at Longwood At Oakmont Retirement Community honored Plum Emergency Medical Services with a certificate of appreciation during borough council’s June 20 meeting.

“We do a lot working with them,” said Brian Maloney, EMS operations director. “Especially before the pandemic, we did a lot of presentations for education. We still do presentations for some of their staff members and helped develop some of their emergency operations plans.

“When that one woman said we’re there every day, that wasn’t a lie. They can be about 15 to 18 percent of our call volume.”

EMS crew members were the ones who received the recognition from the community. Several members attended the meeting to receive the certificate, but they weren‘t informed prior to the meeting about the honor. They were only asked to show up because the Longwood community wanted to give them something.

The recognition comes as frontline responders continue to make covid-related adjustments.

“It’s been tough,” Maloney said. “But even throughout all of this, we’ve had incredible support, starting with our board of directors to the council here, the community. There were times during the pandemic that people would stop us in the street and give us N95 (masks) during the initial shortage. It was just amazing to see everybody come together like that.

“It’s also tough because EMS, they try to stay out of the spotlight as much as they can. They’re the ones that sometimes need it the most or at least really deserve it, too.”