PITTSFORD, Vt. -
President Obama signed a piece of legislation into law this week that will protect the families of thousands of emergency medical technicians across the country.
But it was in honor of one Vermont man that this bill finally got the push it needed to become law.
At a snow covered memorial in Pittsford you can read the names of Vermont emergency responders who lost their lives in the line of duty. Including Dale Long.
"We did transport him to the hospital and make all attempts to recessitate him but couldn't," Vermont Ambulance Association Treasurer Bill Hathaway said.
Hathaway was director of Bennington EMS, where Dale was an EMT, when Long was in an ambulance crash in 2009 that killed him. At the time there was no federal program to compensate the families of non-profit EMS responders
"Two o'clock in the morning you get a page to go out on a call and your spouse, wife, husband whomever. You don't know if they're coming back," Hathaway said.
But now there's the Dale Long Act, which provided more than $320,000 to the families of non-profit EMS responders who lose their lives in the field.
It wasn't easy getting the piece of legislation bearing Dale's name to pass in Washington. but one of Vermont's senator's had met Dale before he died in 2009 and was willing to go to any length to make sure the bill bearing Dale's name passed.
"I gave senator Leahy a call and I said senator this lends a face to the law," Hathaway said.
"Dale would be so humbled by all this he might even be embarrassed," Rich Long, Dale's brother, said.
But there's no doubt Dale would be proud of his brother. Both Rich and his wife joined Colchester Rescue after Dale's death.
"I love my brother and I miss him very much but I can't have him back. But what we can do is pay forward some of the good work he was doing," Rich Long said.
And now a law bearing his brother's name will help pay back those who suffer the loss of someone who lived to serve.
"This has a tremendous impact on not just Vermonters but all states where they have volunteers in action doing volunteer EMS work," Rich Long said.
In Vermont it will help cover the lives of 1200 Vermont EMT's and paramedics.
