Director takes 500 mile EMS Memorial ride
They are the first on the scene.
Emergency medical service personnel arrive to comfort and help accident victims.
But, the job is more dangerous than most realize.
Gene Troyan hopes to change that.
Troyan, the director of operations for Butler Ambulance Service, completed a more than 500-mile National EMS Memorial Bike Ride last month.
The ride, in its 15th year, seeks to honor EMS personnel who died or were injured in the line of duty, as well as raise awareness of the danger of the job.
Nationally, 74 EMS workers died on the job in 2014. Twelve of those were from Pennsylvania.
This was Troyan's second time joining the ride, which winds its way from Boston to Alexandria, Va., near Washington, D.C., a distance of 530 miles.
He heard about the ride from a friend a little more than two years ago and was intrigued. So he spent the winter training both indoors and out.
Troyan, who has been with Butler Ambulance Service for 28 years and an EMS worker for 35, said the experience is indescribable.
“I can tell you about it all day, but to experience it is different,” he said recently, sitting in the training room at the ambulance service's First Street offices.
The ride began May 16 in Boston and eventually wound its way through Times Square with a police escort after which the riders were given a ride on a NYFD fire boat, an experience Troyan calls, “pretty cool.”The ride follows a coastal route through many cities and towns before it ended near the nation's capital May 22.Riders pedal about 80 miles each day, rain or shine, Troyan said, describing one day of pouring rain and 52-degree temperatures. But the cyclists were undaunted.“We're there for a purpose,” Troyan said.Each day included a memorial service where the names of each fallen EMS worker is read, followed by the ringing of a bell.“You pedal all those miles, you know exactly what you're pedaling for,” Troyan said.Since a large part of the ride's purpose is honoring those who have died on duty, before the ride begins, each cycler chooses dog tags with the name of a fallen comrade.This year, Troyan chose tags for Kenneth Prunty, of Monongahela, a member of Tri-Community Ambulance, who collapsed and died of a heart attack Nov. 22 after returning from a call.While the ride is not a fundraiser, and the organization provides breakfast and lunch, there is an entrance fee and riders must pay to get to and from the ride, as well as for their hotel accommodations.Troyan credited Butler Ambulance Service, both for giving him the time off and for covering his registration fee.“Initially I thought, 'That's going to be quite a task,'” Denny Bacher, the owner of Butler Ambulance Service, recalled when he heard about the ride.But Bacher said ambulance service workers were confident Troyan would do well, and co-workers followed Troyan's progress through the BAS Facebook page, which the cyclist updated throughout the ride.“We're very fortunate to be able to help support an event like that,” Bacher said. “It's good for the public to be aware of some of the difficulties EMS workers face on a daily basis.”Troyan said the riders are “a great group” and he's made many friends.“It's a whole new family,” he said of his fellow riders. “You get close with people. I look forward to seeing them (each year).”There are five National EMS Memorial Bike Rides each year throughout the country.More information is available online at www.muddyangels.org
