Town employees should be commended for service

Editor’s note: This letter was originally written to the Houlton town office on Jan. 4.
    I want to personally compliment the employees of the Houlton, Maine for a wonderful job that they did for my family during the storm this week.
    My parents are elderly and sickly, my brother is paralyzed from the waist up and lives with them. Jon and I moved them here three years ago to help take care of them and for them to have good consistent medical care. They had previously spent winters in Florida and summers on the coast of Maine for the past 25 years!
    Since their arrival they have called the ambulance a few times due to falls or diabetic reactions – always getting wonderful care.
    Wednesday morning at approximately 2 a.m. they called for the ambulance as my mom was in respiratory distress and somewhat unresponsive. This was in the height of the storm. When I arrived at their home, the ambulance, town plow truck and Houlton police were there.
    These employees all need to be commended and I apologize for not getting their names. The plow truck plowed their road, then plowed their driveway so the ambulance could back in. They have a wheelchair ramp, I began to shovel that to help for the ambulance gurney when the police officer said, “You go in and be with your family, I will shovel this.”
    This goes above the call of duty! He had been called there due to their door being locked, I believe.
    The ambulance attendants, Boot and Phil Ritchie, were wonderful! We couldn’t get the stretcher to her bed so we had to get her up and lift the stretcher; both were so kind to her. Another police officer also came and the four men loaded her into the ambulance.
    The plow waited for the ambulance then made sure the road was plowed to the hospital for them.
    My sisters that live in Rhode Island and Massachusetts can not believe the wonderful service that my mom was given – only in a small town do people care enough to help out.
    I would like for the department heads to personally thank these individuals for me and my family as if the ambulance was not able to get her to the hospital that night there is the possibility she would have died.
    Houlton is lucky to have the services we have.
Sue McLaughlin, Houlton