25 years of improving emergency services for southeast Pamlico County
For 25 years, the Dottie Gray Ambulance Fund has helped save lives in southeast Pamlico County, but this endowment created at the North Carolina Community Foundation has a tale born from tragedy.
In 1999, Jim Gray and his wife, Dorothy, were enjoying retirement living in Oriental. Everything changed Mother’s Day weekend when they traveled to the Bahamas for their daughter’s destination wedding.
Dorothy suffered a stroke. The closest hospital was on another island. She had to be transported by boat, but the more than 30-mile journey was too long. Dorothy did not survive.
“When my daughter expressed regret about planning her wedding in such an isolated place, I realized and I explained to her that it wouldn’t have been any different had it happened in Oriental,” Jim Gray remembered.
Dubbed “the sailboat capital of North Carolina,” Oriental is a popular retirement town with an older population. But at the time, the closest ambulance was stationed more than 10 miles away, and a trip to the nearest hospital in New Bern could take as long as 45 minutes.
“I promised myself at that point that I would try to do something to improve the medical first response time (in southeast Pamlico County),” Gray said.
Gray decided to create an endowment. He contacted NCCF and started the Dottie Gray Ambulance Fund with $5,000 donated by family and friends.
“Working with NCCF made the process of creating and growing an endowment and then awarding grants so easy,” Gray said. “If you had to do it all on your own, you would be so tangled up in paperwork. (NCCF) lets you concentrate on getting donations and directing the grants.”
Gray formed a local advisory board. Its initial goal was to grow the endowment to fund an ambulance in Oriental. “As soon as we started having the meetings, we realized that there was a lot more to do than to provide the ambulance service,” Gray said.
The board started giving annual grants to quicken emergency response time, including supporting:
- Defibrillators for the town of Oriental and local businesses
- An emergency medical technician squad at the local fire department
- Large signs with reflective address numbers for ambulances to find houses at night easier
A breakthrough came in 2011. Pamlico County commissioners approved an ambulance to be stationed at the volunteer fire department in Oriental from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday with money from the Dottie Gray Ambulance Fund aiding with operating costs. “There’s no doubt she would be really proud of the fact that we were able to establish an ambulance service for southeast Pamlico County,” Gray said of his late wife.
Since 2017, the fund has been advised by a committee headed by Oriental Mayor Sally Belangia, who is also a board member of the Pamlico County Community Foundation, an NCCF affiliate foundation. “If there’s a need, we’re going to supply it,” she said.
Under Belangia’s guidance, the fund has been used to upgrade and replace expensive emergency supplies. The town purchased an emergency quick response vehicle loaded with first responder equipment. With the QRV, EMTs can stabilize patients and transport them without waiting for an ambulance.
“Time counts,” said Eric Kindle, a paramedic for Pamlico Rescue and chief of the Southeast Pamlico Volunteer Fire Department.
To date, the fund has provided over $180,000 in grants. “Having this equipment over the years, it might not be used every day, but over the course of a decade-plus, it adds up,” added Kindle, who estimates the Dottie Gray Ambulance Fund has saved dozens of lives.
“Personally, it’s a real satisfaction as a memorial to my first wife,” said Gray, thinking back on the fund’s quarter-century history. “I love the idea that it’s called the Dottie Gray Ambulance Fund.”