By Eddie Cress

Special to the Post

If you have ever needed the services of the Rowan County Rescue Squad, then you know what it’s like to be lost in the woods or pinned inside of your wrecked car or have your arm or leg caught in a piece of machinery.

Or maybe you have experienced the loss of a friend or relative to a drowning at High Rock Lake or Tuckertown Reservoir.

Over the last 63 years, a lot of citizens have experienced a traumatic incident in their lives that have required our local Rescue Squad to respond and assist. A lot of these type responses are made possible through our local Rowan County United Way.

Being a United Way agency, Rowan County Rescue depends on every citizen and employee in Rowan County to make an annual donation to the United Way campaign each year. The squad uses 100 percent of the money allocated to us for operational purposes such as buying fuel for the trucks and ambulances, buying medical supplies and paying employees to man the rescue stations and respond to your accident.

Without the money coming from our United Way each year, we couldn’t pay nearly as many employees to be on the job and ready to respond immediately to the emergency call, and we surely couldn’t afford to have 40 volunteers trained as emergency medical technicians, paramedics and rescue technicians.

For this I want to personally thank every citizen that makes his or her donation to the United Way. Your donation helps 15 different agencies in Rowan County each year make ends meet, pay the bills and assist over 70,000 citizens. That’s half of the population of Rowan County. The annual campaign has ended but it’s never too late to give to the Rowan County United Way. A new campaign will begin soon!

Eddie G. Cress is chief of the Rowan County Rescue Squad.