Until a red oak tree in front of the Killingworth Ambulance Association headquarters was removed in June, it held a sign that read, “Volunteers Needed; Training Available.” The sign was taken down with the tree, but the need for EMTs remains.

So does the training.

In fact, the KAA will hold another EMT course next month, with the first class scheduled for August 19 and instruction ending at an undisclosed time before Thanksgiving. Classes will be held on Mondays and Thursdays from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., with five Saturdays also included … and if that sounds like a commitment, it’s because it is.

So why get involved? Let us count the ways. What follows are 10 advantages to becoming an EMT with the Killingworth Ambulance Association:

• A 50 percent reimbursement of course fees after six months of active service.
• The remaining 50 percent paid after one year of active service.
• The KAA pays for active members to attend EMS Pro (a state conference) and the annual Connecticut Trauma Conference.
• The town of Killingworth has a $1,000 abatement for active members.
• The KAA reimburses the cost for state recertification for EMTs or EMRs.
• The KAA also offers a subscription to an online Continuing Medical Education (CME) program.
• The KAA offers a $50 stipend for each transporting call and $25 for non-transporting.
• Uniforms are supplied, with a $50 uniform allotment per year for boots.
• The KAA has a yearly appreciation and awards banquet.
• It also sponsors educational opportunities such as De-Escalation Training and Stop the Bleed instruction as they become available.

In an article posted earlier this month on Zip06.com (https://www.zip06.com/news/20190711/iino-we-need-to-start-now), Killingworth First Selectwoman Cathy Iino addressed the advantages of becoming an emergency responder. But she also explained that ‘finding volunteers to staff these services is increasingly difficult,” saying that “long-range challenges” loom for Killingworth and surrounding communities if that trend continues.

So what to do? The KAA has a solution, and it begins in three weeks.

“Just try it,” said Jess Accetta, a Killingworth Ambulance EMT from Clinton. “It’s a lot of hard work and commitment. Not everyone wants to get up at 2 in the morning (to answer a call). But if you have the passion for compassion and the drive to help others around you, this is the right place to be.”

At last October’s annual Killingworth Ambulance Association banquet, Mark Clifton was honored as the EMT who responded to the most calls the previous year. This month he was honored again … but not for responding to a call.

For responding to a calling.

A member of the Killingworth Ambulance Association board of directors and director of Deer Lake Camp, Clifton was commended in an email the KAA received this week from a paramedic who assisted in a call where a patient ultimately died (you can find it in the Testimonials section under “About Us” in our website index).

“A difficult and sad situation,” wrote Middlesex Health’s Gary Johnson.

It happened last month when a father and his 24-year-old son asked Mark and wife Patty if they could fish at Deer Lake. It wasn’t an unusual request. The father, who lived in Branford, had known the Cliftons for 10 years, and his son, who lived in Georgia, was on his way to a military boot camp and wanted to spend one of his last free weekends fishing with his Dad.

And so he did. Unfortunately, what should have been a joyous morning turned tragic when the father collapsed and 911 was called.

And that’s where Clifton comes in.

On his way to emergency call taken only minutes before, he received word that urgent help was needed at the Deer Lake location he just left. He didn’t know who or what was involved. He simply knew he had to continue to his destination — which he did, finding a full crew from the KAA there when he arrived.

So he returned immediately to Deer Lake, helping a Madison Ambulance team on the scene in first finding the son and his father and then driving his Land Rover to a remote location at the north end of Deer Lake to ferry the patient through the woods to an awaiting ambulance.

“Otherwise,” Clifton said, “they would have had a half-mile carry-out.”

But that’s not what caught Johnson’s attention. This is: After the father was hurried away, Clifton drove the son to the Shoreline Medical Center in Westbrook (“I could tell he needed someone,” Clifton said). It was there that the distraught young man was told his father had passed away and there that Clifton spent an estimated five hours consoling him and assisting with phone calls to relatives.

“I didn’t want to leave the clinic with him until he had come to grips with his Dad’s death and gone to see him,” Clifton said, struggling to control his emotions. “The son said, ‘It’s so nice of you to be here.’ And I told him, ‘If the situation were reversed, your Dad would be here.’ We didn’t leave the hospital until he said he was ready.”

Afterward, Clifton offered to feed the young man dinner and house him overnight, but he declined.

“Mark came down to Shoreline,” Johnson wrote in his email to the KAA, “spending several hours with the patient’s son, keeping him company and being a support. For most, the job would have been done back at the scene. Not Mark. He spent the afternoon helping this young man, showing much compassion and empathy.

“Your agency should be proud to have a member as dedicated and caring as Mark.”