Photo by Sam Thiel First Baptist Church Pastor Rich Riley also serves as a first responder in Lake Benton.

LAKE BENTON — As a pastor for the First Baptist Church in Lake Benton for the past eight-and-a-half years, Rich Riley has been serving others for a long time. But it was just a few months into his position that he found another opportunity to help those in his community.

The 46-year-old Riley noticed an advertisement in the paper looking for volunteers for the Lake Benton First Responders and felt like the ability to volunteer aligned with his calling in the church. He has been helping ever since, spending the past seven-and-a-half years as an emergency medical responder, including the last couple of years as captain of a six-person crew, all of whom are volunteers.

“I moved to Lake Benton almost nine years ago and I saw an ad in the paper that was advertising Lake Benton First Responders and it kind of described what they do,” Riley said. “I’m a local pastor here at the First Baptist Church and the mission of the first responders seemed to go well with what God has called me to do as a pastor, to help people and spiritually point people to Jesus Christ as their savior. Also Jesus helped a lot of people medically while he was on Earth, so it’s an opportunity to serve people like Jesus did.”

After going through his semester-long training at Minnesota West Technical Community College, Riley took the certification tests to become an emergency medical responder, which is a level below emergency medical technicians (EMTs). As an emergency medical responder, Riley said their main duty is to perform care for the patient until the ambulance can arrive.

“We don’t transport any patients, we don’t administer any medications, but we can do CPR, we carry defibrillators with us, we carry oxygen and the goal is to just start emergency patient care until the ambulance arrives,” Riley said. “Usually it’s with the Tyler ambulance, most of our calls correspond with them, but occasionally the Pipestone ambulance or on more rare occasions the Hendricks ambulance. We respond to fire calls to back up the fire department in case anyone’s injured, car accidents, any sort of medical emergency. Sometimes law enforcement is involved, sometimes it’s not, quite a range of different calls.”

Riley said they’ve averaged between 90 to 100 calls a year the last few years, with the majority of calls lasting between 30-45 minutes. The Lake Benton First Responders and the Fire Department each have one rig to use, but will usually assist each other on calls. Riley said their coverage area includes parts of Pipestone County to the South, as far Southwest as Ward (S.D.), just short of Arco to the north, and halfway to Tyler to the east and all the way to the state line to the west of them.

Riley added he averages around four to five hours each month volunteering with the first responders either going on calls or at monthly meetings, where they review their calls and do in-house training. He also said they must get their recertification every two years.

“It keeps us busy but at the same time, this is not our full-time job, this is just a volunteer opportunity,” Riley said. “My schedule is pretty flexible except during church services, so I can’t respond during those, but when I’m studying or doing something else I’m able to respond in the community. I’ve gotten to know a lot of people in the community this way and hopefully have been a help to them.”

Riley said his faith has impacted him in a lot of ways, especially when he is out on a call, and feels it’s an opportunity to serve people and provide comfort for them.

“I do feel that God has given me this mission to serve people and there are certainly spiritual needs and beliefs that I would like to share but can’t share on a medical call, but I can pray for the patients even silently as I’m working on them to treat a wound or comfort them, so I think it has a big impact,” he said.

During the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Riley said just the uncertainty was a frightening feeling, especially with a small amount of crew members, but added they got a lot of help from the county with extra equipment and haven’t received a lot of COVID-related calls the longer the pandemic has gone on.

“At first, the unknown was really scary,” he said. “We took special precautions. Our medical director is Dr. Dan Florey from the Tyler hospital so he kind of gives us some direction through the Tyler ambulance as to what to use for personal protection equipment (PPE). We’ve always worn gloves and wear masks and for a while we were wearing gowns and face shields.”

“We were already disinfecting after calls but we had to do extra cleaning work with the pandemic. The longer things have gone on, we didn’t have a lot of pandemic-related calls, in fact, some people maybe seemed a little afraid to call the ambulance but our experience as a small town is probably different than that of a larger city.”

The other current crew members are Bridget Dinnel, Todd Dykstra, Kim Hansen, Amanda Olsen and Graham Dinnel. Riley added while they are always looking for more help, people looking to volunteer need to live in Lake Benton to be able to respond quickly enough in order to be able to help.

Riley added he’s extremely grateful for the opportunity to serve his community and while there are definitely stressful situations when responding to calls, he said it can be reassuring when he’s able to help someone in need.

“I’m just thankful for the opportunity to serve and at times we are worried that we won’t have enough help to continue on but right now we do and we’re thankful for that. We love the people of our community and it’s just a chance to be part of it and for me personally, it’s an opportunity for God to use me to bless others hopefully,” Riley said.

“It’s a nervous job when you know that peoples lives are on the line at times and it can be very stressful but it puts a smile on your face when you know you’ve been able to help.”