TOWER — Dena Suihkonen, who has served as Tower’s ambulance supervisor for the past five years, has been in limbo for weeks as the city decides whether to allow her to return to work part-time. Suihkonen was paralyzed in a freak accident last July while volunteering in the dunk tank at the Breitung Community Picnic.
Suihkonen, along with her union representative, Amanda Metsa, met with city councilor Joe Morin and deputy clerk Terri Joki-Martin last week to discuss her future as a city employee. The city had placed Suihkonen on unpaid administrative leave earlier this fall after she used up her accrued leave time.
“They wanted to see a letter from my doctor showing when I could go back to work without restrictions,” Suihkonen said. “It might be 12-24 months and, still, I would never be able to be back in the rig.”
Suihkonen was left paralyzed from the waist down as a result of the accident, which requires her to use a wheelchair.
Suihkonen said the city does have the right to terminate her, because she cannot complete all the duties required by the current ambulance supervisor job description. But Suihkonen notes there are still parts of the job, mainly the administrative portion, that she is still highly qualified to perform.
She went into this meeting thinking the city was going to ask her to resign or be terminated.
“The city doesn’t seem to understand what I can still give,” she said.
But after this meeting, Suihkonen said that Morin did seem to understand she could still be a valued employee with a different focus.
“They will be bringing the situation to the next council meeting,” she said. “I would love to be back part-time.”
Suihkonen said the skills needed for the current job description go beyond that of a typical EMT. And right now, many of these duties are not being completed. She took the initiative to get the annual reporting in for EMSRB funding for next year after the city missed the deadline, getting a brief extension to get the reporting done.
Suihkonen said while she was working as ambulance supervisor, she never had an official assistant to help with her duties.
“It was me doing everything,” she said, “but often other ambulance members helped out.”
Suihkonen said that EMT Steve Freshour, who has been filling in as supervisor, said he didn’t realize how many other types of work she was doing. Freshour is also a captain in the city’s fire department in addition to serving as interim fire chief.
The administrative part of the job involves ambulance billing, payroll, ordering supplies, scheduling shifts, organizing trainings, employee paperwork, dealing with other agencies and hospitals, scheduling ambulance maintenance and dealing with ambulance vehicle issues, as well as being the public face of the service. The ambulance supervisor position requires someone who can “stay calm and deal with a lot of issues,” she said. “I like the fact that I was known for being fair.”
The city has also had the ambulance supervisor go on ambulance runs during the day, which saves the ambulance service money, because the supervisor isn’t being paid the hourly rate for EMTs for these runs. These runs totaled in the hundreds each year.
Suihkonen said she is happy to see how the ambulance staff has come together to keep the service running smoothly in her absence.
“Our crew deserves so much credit,” she said.
The Tower City Council meets on Monday, Dec. 8 at 5:30 p.m. at the Herbert R. Lamppa Civic Center.