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A man of many hats - or helmets

Bill Mangas, center, chats with the Riverside EMS crew in their ambulance.

ENLARGE PHOTO

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By Ken Mosier, Health Care Today Updated 10:05 AM Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Bill Mangas

Title: EMS Liaison, firefighter, paramedic, paramedic instructor

Affiliation: Good Samaritan Hospital

Education: Associate degree, Fire Science, Louisiana State University

He is a firefighter, paramedic, paramedic instructor, EMS Liaison, outreach coordinator — all rolled into one.

“And other jobs as assigned,” quipped Bill Mangas, who holds all those titles. “I do a lot of different things as the EMS liaison — a position which most hospitals have — specifically between the Emergency Department and all the area EMS departments that bring us patients,” he said.

“I spend most of my time in education,” he said. He said that he administers written tests that every emergency service provider has to take annually, conducts educational programs for those paramedics and emergency medical technicians and works as a link between the medical directors and the various EMS departments in Good Samaritan’s 10-county area. He estimates that in an average year, he tests between 500 and 600 service providers and conducts about 160 training sessions.

“A lot of patients come to hospitals from EMS and coordinator is a very time-consuming job. The job takes between 55 and 60 hours a week and you are always on call,” he said.

When he is not training paramedics and EMTs in his capacity of EMS liaison at Good Sam, he also tries to take one shift a month as paramedic/firefighter at the Englewood Fire Department.

“I don’t believe you can teach it unless you keep doing it,” he said. “I also spend more time (in Englewood) training there.”

Mangas got interested in firefighting at a young age.

“When I was 14 years old, I started on the Union City, Ind., Fire Department as a cadet — an Explorer program through the Boy Scouts,” he recalled.

Three years later, he became a volunteer firefighter for the department.

After graduating high school, Mangas enrolled at Louisiana State University for his associate degree in fire science. After graduation, he stayed in Louisiana for a while before rejoining his hometown’s department as a full-time firefighter.

After serving as chief of that department for five years, he became EMS coordinator at the Upper Valley Medical Center and then came to Good Samaritan.

He is finishing a bachelor’s degree at Wright State University in organizational leadership.

“(My job) is never boring. It is never the same,” he said.

“The EMS providers are out there serving their communities so it is a pleasure for me to be involved in that.”

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