St. Mary's County DES reports retirements, EMS chief search and after-action review of carbon-monoxide incident

The Department of Emergency Services told the St. Mary's County Emergency Services Board on June 11 that Deputy Director Gerald Gardner retired effective June 1 and that DES is moving forward with recruitment and onboarding to fill vacancies across EMS.

"Deputy director Gerald Gardner officially retired effective June 1," Director Jennifer Utz said. Utz said DES has issued a conditional offer of employment for a replacement and that a separate executive search firm, Sumter, is handling the EMS chief recruitment. "The round of interviews for the EMS chief's position will be held by them in the June and then we should have our final candidates and a selection made by the July for us," she said.

Utz provided current staffing and training figures for EMS: "We currently have 12 people in our EMS academy," she said, and described a revised onboarding approach that includes roughly four weeks of initial in-person training followed by a shorter field training officer (FTO) period. She reported "10 full time EMTs, 1 part time EMT, 1 part time paramedic or hourly" on staff and said DES has "13 additional conditional offers pending for EMS." Utz said, "provided they're all successful, we will have our EMS vacancies filled by the end of summer."

Utz also said DES and the county fire department are conducting an after-action review (AAR) of a carbon-monoxide incident in Lexington Park to identify lessons learned. "We are working, collaboratively with, the fire department and, Sean that you're back in town, doing an AAR on the carbon monoxide incident ... just a deep dive into that ... and our response to that," she said.

St. Mary's County EMS Chief Sean Davidson briefed the board on changes to EMT recertification at the state/jurisdictional level that will affect training and renewal processes. Davidson said the jurisdictional advisory council is updating the recertification process to align more closely with the National Registry's format. "After July 1, the way in which we are renewing our BLS clinicians is going to change and line up a lot more with what the, national registry does," Davidson said, adding that the recertification cycle will remain on a three-year schedule but that the renewal format will include a skills-competency module rather than a skills class.

Board members congratulated Gerald Gardner on his retirement and thanked staff for collaborative responses to recent incidents. No formal board action was taken on recruitment or the AAR during the meeting; DES reported progress and outlined next steps for hiring and training.