“Anyone familiar with the town knows that it’s one of the richest residential suburbs ON EARTH.One would think the town could afford a professional ambulance service to take critically ill patients to New Haven,Stamford or Manhattan “
Obviously, you are not familiar with Darien ....
Obviously, you did not read past the headline ...
I grew up in Darien. They are also served by volunteer fire departments. The men who put out the fires are entirely unpaid, but the departments are rumored to have tens of millions of dollars in assets. They do throw great parties, and have very fancy firehouses and the latest equipment.
As for the EMT kids, they are very capable. There is a lot of push by the parents for them to grow up and make something of themselves. Even when I grew up in the 60s and 70s, the high school was very competitive and they pushed demanding academics. We had a number of 800/800 SAT scores, and a lot of the best students got 4 or 5 on multiple AP exams. We did also drink a lot of beer and destroy a lot of valuable vehicles, typical of the rich-kid type of town. Most survived, and became affluent professionals of some sort.
I think this is a brilliant solution. Gives the kids responsibility and keeps the cost of government down. You would prefer hiring EMTS? Would probably take five people minimum to be on call 24/7.
You got your cart before the horse. Rethink this and straighten out your traces. One could posit that is so rich because it treats its citizens like adults. Liberals think because the suburb is rich, it should spend its money. Hmmm, but then it would not have volunteer citizens, and that is quite important in our culture. Has been forever, it is one of the things that makes our nation great, and you can't buy it.