First Responders Update

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with social media. I deleted my Facebook account back in May because I no longer felt it served me well. Since that time, people continue to send me screenshots of threads on Facebook and Nextdoor if they pertain to Skidaway Island First Responders.

Recently, we had an incident that seemed to draw a lot of online attention. Let me remind all of you that at the end of the day, we are a community. We should be looking after one another and making sure that we have each other’s backs. Bashing someone on social media serves no purpose and helps no one.

I was horrified by what I read from the online posts. The assumptions that people made without ANY REAL evidence of information was not only alarming, it most certainly wasn’t community-minded. The incident involved a male driver; some were saying it was a woman, which was more misinformation, and a vehicle.

Many people insinuated this person involved in the incident mentioned above was drunk. People can have countless medical conditions that can cause someone to drive erratically. I think it makes more sense not to assume anything if you don’t know any facts whatsoever.

Imagine being the person involved in this situation. Put yourself in those shoes. You’ve had a medical crisis, and then someone shows you all the speculation that took place on a social media thread about you being drunk. How would you feel? I doubt you’d feel like you lived in a supportive community.

Please try not to have conversations about medical emergencies on our island via social media. HIPAA prevents any of us who know the facts from responding, and honestly, I’m not sure why it’s done in the first place.

The Nextdoor page recently had a thread about all the sirens on the island. Someone posted that they talked to the head of the Skidaway Island First Responders, and “he” (clearly wasn’t me) told him we have 30-50 EMS calls a week. That simply is not true and is quite excessive. We might average one call a day for some weeks. Other weeks, we might have up to six calls in one day. It varies all the time.

The sirens you may hear are for both EMS and fire. A resident and former Fire Chief on the island summed it up best, “If you hear sirens, they are needed.” Please know that our job is to protect and serve this community. It is Georgia law to run a siren with red lights. Also, Landings security runs lights and sirens, too. If you hear sirens, it is the volunteers and paid personnel responding to a call that someone made to us.

It’s a new year, and I’m cautiously optimistic that we can work together as a community to take care of each other. With that comes great responsibility, and we must make all efforts not to always assume the worst about one another. The Skidaway Island First Responders work hard to make sure all of you have help when needed. We can’t talk about it on Facebook or any social media platform, but we promise we do the best we can to do it well.

Thank you for your continued support and for all the positive feedback we get from so many of you in this community. We don’t take it for granted.