March 15, 2008
Saturday

The search and rescue community received some good news this week with the passage of HB 320 through the State House the bill has been sent on to the Senate for their approval.. For those who may be unfamiliar with this legislation HB 320 will fill a dire need to support our search and rescue volunteers if they are injured during the training missions necessary to participate in search and rescue activity. As with much of the State the volunteer professionals working for the Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad are not paid for their service, nor are they compensated for their participation in training missions to keep their skills honed.

The State of Alaska provides insurance that covers volunteers if an injury occurs on a search and rescue mission authorized by the State of Alaska, however this insurance does not provide workers compensation coverage nor does it cover training missions. As search managers we would be negligent to deploy search crews that are improperly trained for the mission, this forces our crews to train without the proper coverage.

With the passage of HB 320 the volunteers statewide who donate so much of their time and expertise for the protection of our communities will be receive the insurance protection for themselves and their families they so richly deserve.

I ask you to PLEASE contact your local representative and let then know how important this bill is to our community, we need to protect our volunteer emergency responders and support their efforts to keep our community safe.

For questions on HB 320 please contact the Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad or your local representative.

Jerry L. Kiffer
Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad
Ketchikan, AK

Received March 14, 2008 - Published March 15, 2008

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