Our mission is to provide essential, quality pre-hospital emergency medical care and transport. We are a team of dedicated paid and volunteer individuals serving our neighbors in times of need.
The Lakeside QRU is a 24/7 emergency medical response organization founded in 1981. We respond to 911 dispatched calls from Lakeside, Somers, South Kalispell, Lower Valley and Rollins areas providing emergency medical services and ambulance transport. We serve a large geographic area from two stations, utilizing three ambulances, two paramedic quick response vehicles and 30 trained emergency medical personnel. On average, we are dispatched 14 times each week, approximating 750 calls per year for medical emergencies.
The organization is licensed to respond to Basic Life Support as well as Advanced Life Support emergencies. Approximately 78% of the calls are medical emergencies and 16% are motor vehicle accidents. 54% of the dispatched calls result in transport to the hospital.
For over 4 decades, the QRU has attracted highly trained Emergency Medical Service personnel who collectively contribute thousands of hours each year to provide assistance to the communities in which they serve. Since our humble beginning with volunteers, we have since upgraded our staffing and services to include Paid call responders, Part-time EMT's and Paramedics, Executive Director, Operations Manager, Service Director, Billing Service and Bookkeepers. As the requests for service increases and staffing grows, the Lakeside QRU has respnded to each one of these needs.
History
The Lakeside QRU was founded in 1981 as the Upper West Shore Quick Response Unit by a group of citizens who realized the response time for aid to arrive to the West Shore communities from Kalispell was too long. These charter QRU volunteers responded to emergencies from their homes and workplaces providing basic life support until advance support arrived. As the need for services grew, so did the QRU. The organization acquired a van style ambulance in 1994 to transport responders and vital equipment, and in 2006 received the additional training and licensure needed to commence transporting patients as well.
The Somers Fire District generously shared their satellite facility in Lakeside with the QRU until 2009 when Al and Cora Luna kick-started a QRU building campaign by contributing 2 acres of land to be used for a new QRU facility. The QRU Community Building was completed in 2012 as a result of overwhelming community financial support.
