By James Hanlon
Leader Staff Writer
A first responder from Oxford helped keep dignitaries safe at the Presidential Inauguration of Joe Biden in Washington D.C. last week.
Nancy Hunger, a firefighter/paramedic with the Oxford Fire Dept. since 2006, was deployed to the event with the Michigan-1 Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT), a group of medical providers and support personnel designed to provide medical care during disasters and national security special events. She has been a member of the team for nine years.
“It was really neat,” Hunger said of the experience. As a paramedic, she was there to provide emergency care for anyone in the audience who might have an accident or in case of mass casualties. She was positioned inside the perimeter of National Guardsmen, on the lawn in front of the Capitol where she was able to hear all the speeches.
“We had a trailer set up on each side of the Capitol Building,” she explained. “Each trailer was basically a field hospital consisting of critical care paramedics, doctors, nurses and lifesaving equipment.” Hunger said there were also teams inside the Capitol Building, and others that were rovers patrolling around.
This was Hunger’s second inauguration. Four years ago, she went to Donald Trump’s for the same purpose.
Of course, this year’s ceremony was a very different experience, with heightened security and a lot more check points. She estimates that there were less than 2,000 audience members, mostly members of Congress, their families and guests.
During the day, she ran into Oxford’s congresswoman, Elissa Slotkin from Michigan’s 8th District. “She saw us and saw that we had ‘Michigan’ on our uniforms,” Hunger recalled, “and we saw her, so she was very excited.”
Prior to Inauguration Day, Hunger was sent to a mission support center in Frederick, Maryland for two days of training. Members of the Capitol Police and FBI went over how to keep safe in case of protests. They were each issued escape hoods (gas masks) in case of tear gas.
“We were a little nervous. They basically tell you to have your head on a swivel and make sure to keep your eyes open. If you see something, say something. I think the Capitol was just so prepared for this.”
Fortunately, there were no major incidents. “Thank goodness, we did hear a few protests on the outside of the walls, but nothing crazy, no accidents for us, no injuries for our team anyway.”
As an intermittent federal employee, Hunger was deployed four times last year to help with COVID-19 responses across the country. Her DMAT group contains doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, physician assistants and paramedics like her.
In February 2020, she helped former passengers from the outbreak on the Diamond Princess cruise ship that had been quarantined on the water in Japan. U.S. citizens on that ship were eventually sent to various locations across the United States to quarantine. Hunger went to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, where they received about 100 of the passengers. “We basically quarantined them for two weeks in army barracks, dorms so to speak, and pretty much took care of these folks’ needs until the CDC could figure out what to do.”
Then she went to Baltimore, Maryland to help nursing homes and emergency rooms set up to have better protection against infection, and to help with testing.
She went to Tuba City, Arizona on the Navajo Nation Reservation to assist an inundated hospital. “They were really overwhelmed with a lot of Covid patients. So we helped them out. We got their hospital up and running.”
And, she went to McAllen, Texas, near the Rio Grande on the border with Mexico. “I was there in July. And again, they were completely overrun with Covid patients and we were there to assist the ER as paramedics and nurses and things just to augment what they’ve got going. So it’s been a busy year.”
Probably, she will help vaccination efforts next.
In years past, she has gone to hurricane responses in Puerto Rico and Florida. “It’s pretty cool. I get to see the world.”
Hunger wished to express her appreciation for Chief Pete Scholz and the Oxford Fire Department for allowing her time off to work with DMAT and serve the country. “It’s quite an honor,” she said.