Ride to honor Oklahoma EMTs

National EMS Memorial Two state paramedics salute fallen comrades

Link to NewsOK.Com Article

BY DAVID ZIZZO
Published: May 11, 2009
Daily Oklahoman
Eric Grider used to ride with Shane Gilmore and Shawn Skelly. Next week, Grider and a friend will be riding in their memory.
Eric Grider, above, and David Seng, right, plan to complete a 600-mile bicycle ride in memory of paramedics Shane Gilmore and Shawn Skelly. Photos provided
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Grider, 30, of Davis and David Seng, 43, of Norman will participate in the National EMS Memorial Bike Ride, a 600-mile bike ride from New York City to Roanoke, Va., from May 16-22. Grider and Seng, both paramedics and registered nurses, will be riding as Team 3022 in honor of Gilmore and Skelly, paramedics who were killed on duty Oct. 6, 2002, while helping a traffic accident victim. Gilmore’s medic number was 30, and Skelly’s 22.
Gilmore, 31, and Skelly, 27, were at the accident scene on Interstate 35 south of Ardmore helping a woman into their ambulance when a driver lost control during a rainstorm. The driver’s sport utility vehicle struck and killed the two paramedics and the woman.
Grider got to know Gilmore at an ambulance service in Pauls Valley, where Gilmore worked with a partner. "I was really inspired by their skills and knowledge as paramedics.”
Later, Grider trained under Gilmore and Skelly at Southern Oklahoma Ambulance Service in Ardmore.
Seng said he decided to ride in the EMS Memorial Ride after watching a presentation at a conference in Enid. A speaker displayed a map showing states of cyclists participating. "We didn’t have anybody from Oklahoma,” he said. Oklahoma had lost three emergency medical technicians in the state since 2002, he said. The third was Janez Case, 51, of Clayton, who died Feb. 1, 2007, after an ambulance she was riding in left the road and rolled near Talihina.
Seng, clinical manager for Integris One Call Center in Oklahoma City, is a longtime cyclist, so the memorial ride was a natural.
"I’ve really, really got to do this,” he decided.
Seng asked Grider whether he would be interested, then the two approached Southern Oklahoma Ambulance Service officials to ask "would you guys be OK if we did this?” Seng said. "We just started the ball rolling.”
Grider and Seng have been riding about 100 miles a week to prepare for the memorial ride, which will cover more than 600 miles in seven days. "If the wind doesn’t blow as hard as Oklahoma, this is going to be a nice ride,” Seng said.
Besides honoring the fallen EMTs, Grider and Seng say they’re riding to bring attention to the fact that EMTs do not receive any state or federal life insurance or survivor benefits like police and firefighters.
Grider and Seng are collecting donations to help pay their expenses, with the rest going to the "Fallen Angels Family Fund.”
Memorial representatives have called on riders to try to meet with members of their congressional delegations when they pass through Washington, D.C., to urge lawmakers to fund death benefits for EMTs.
Seng said EMTs face two major risks: getting hit by vehicles at the scene of an accident and being assaulted as they tend to injured people. "It’s very risky,” he said