KAREN:  Different from being a health aide? 

RITA:  Yeah.  Sometimes I do miss that, though.  There are two days out of the month that I am a health aide.  And I try to pick days in White Mountain where I know there is a shortage. 

Like White Mountain has all three part-time health aides, so one health aide will work from Monday to Thursday, 8:00 to 5:00.  And then the next health aide, she will work from Tuesday to Friday from 8:00 to 5:00.  Then there's a part time that works every day five hours from 8:00 to -- or 9:00 to 4:00 -- 9:00 to 3:00.  

So there's a -- there might be a day here and there when there's a shortage, so I'll try to pick those days and work.  But I do miss it sometimes. 

And all the health aides are EMT.  They've all been trained in EMS.  And that's another thing that we have to do in our villages, make sure that their trainings are up, they don't expire.  Every two years our EMS expires, and then Norton Sound has a program here where they have ongoing training. 
So that's something we have to keep up with all the different health aides in all the villages.  And we have to keep those up, too, ourselves, as VSIs. 

KAREN:  So when you were a health aide, when you were part time, even alternate or part time, did you have to deal with this sort of 24/7 on call, anytime-type schedule? 

RITA:  Yeah.  It was -- it was like you had to be available for people to find you. 

I'm so in awe of Willa and Irene, these older health aides, back before Norton Sound became incorporated, they were on call like 25/8, you know.  They couldn't leave town. 

They -- I remember when Willa would finally get time to leave White Mountain, she would be so happy.  And she would leave White Mountain to come to Nome to see friends or relatives or go on a boat ride to Golovin to go fishing. 

And so they would call us to work and you know, I know those are valuable times for them just to get away.  Just get out of the village.  Because you never know when someone's going to call, middle of the night. 

And back then when they got emergencies, too, you know, it was always seemed like it was always during dinner.  I remember my mom cooking dinner and then someone coming, running to the house saying, oh, someone got hurt, and she would have to get up and leave.  So it was either my dad or myself who would have to take over cooking. 

And Willa did that quite a bit, too.  And her husband was a good cook. 

KAREN:  And what about with your family, did that happen to you that you get called away in the middle of something? 

RITA:  Yeah. 

KAREN:  Or in the middle of the night? 

RITA:  Yeah.  Yeah.  There was a couple times we had babies delivered over there and are emergencies.  They would be like two o'clock in the morning sometimes.  It would be middle of the day when you're gone, you miss dinner.  So someone has to take care of it. 

I remember in June of '86, it was my dad who was helping some village guys work on our city generator.  It was a big building with two -- three beams down the middle.  It must have been like the 20-by-24 building.  They were moving it and my dad just volunteered to help. 

So he went under the building and was trying to move the jack, and the whole building fell on him.  And it was -- it was, you know, when you come through emergencies like that, your mind just goes, okay, this is what I have to do, and I have to do it. 

It was my dad and I wasn't thinking.  You know.  Some people would just go blank if it's someone you're related to.  But knowing that someone was hurt and I had to do it, I was the only caregiver there, we didn't have medevacs back then, we put him on the backboard, they finally got him out from under the building and put him on the backboard, and all these guys helped carry him to the clinic. 

And there was a plane up on the hill, so they waited and we brought him out to the plane, came to Nome.  And they were all so impressed that they got the X-rays and everything.  He had multiple pelvic fractures.  And Dr. O'Neill overheard me call him "dad." 

And she said, Rita, is that your dad?  And I said, yeah.

She said, oh, she said, I wouldn't be doing that if I were you.  Because they couldn't get his IVs in the hospital, and the guy who was trying to get the IV, the nurse knew I was a health aide, he said, Rita, maybe you can get it.  I said, okay. 

I was going to try.  You know.  That was the only thing I could do. 

But then Dr. O'Neill heard me call him "dad," she said, I don't think I would do that if I were you.  You know, I didn't know back then.  But you just have to do what you have to do. 

And he ended up going to Anchorage the very same way we put him on the backboard at White Mountain, they couldn't turn him over.  And in a way, Dr. O'Neill told us that he was going to die.  That was her fifth person ever she saw with multiple pelvic fractures and they all died.  But my dad survived.  But they even showed us the slides, the X-ray.  I was impressed. 

KAREN:  That must make you feel good that you helped save him.

RITA:  Uh-hum.  Yeah.  You know, there's just some times there's nothing you can do but just be there and just try to do your best. 

Nowadays they have better equipment and they have medevacs and it did take a while to get here, but you know back then, it was just you have to do what you have to do.