Should small towns still have volunteer EMS?

In small US towns, emergency fire and ambulance first responder agencies are still mostly staffed by volunteers — a practice that was put in place in the 1970s and 1980s. But these volunteers are increasingly older, with fewer young people signing up than in previous decades.

Higher cost of living and a diminishing rural population have made volunteering less appealing than it used to be. We interviewed experts in the field of emergency response to figure out how to get those volunteers back, and the answer may be a simple one: pay them for their time.

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