TRR photo by David Hulse Bill Rypkema in his hunting lodge-style home. (Click for larger image)

It’s a
matter of appreciation

By DAVID HULSE

GLEN SPEY — Bill Rypkema was close to death and afraid. Bleeding profusely from an accidental, self-inflicted gunshot wound in his foot, Rypkema had dragged himself over to the stairs leading up from the basement room of his Haring Road home, but he could go no further. He says that God intervened at that point. “I wasn’t spiritually prepared to meet him and I asked him, ‘please give me another chance.’”

He says his wife Gloria and the Lumberland Fire Department Ambulance were God’s instruments. “He answered my prayer with their actions,” he said.

This was four months ago. Rypkema’s experience began late on a Sunday afternoon, August 12 at Bill and Gloria Rypkema’s secluded Haring Road home. The house is really a hunting lodge, reflective of Rypkema’s decades of big game hunting adventures. His trophy room displays animals from all over the world, including an African lion, a rhinoceros, a cape buffalo and the tusks of two African elephants.

At age 71, Rypkema was a combat veteran of the Korean War, and has hunted for 55 years. “I came out of all that without a scratch,” he said. But a 270 Winchester rifle discharged into his left foot that Sunday everything changed.

He and his wife were alone at the house. Gloria came quickly though and worked to stanch the bleeding with a towel before she called 911. “Most of my left foot was gone,” he recalled.

Although suffering intense pain, Rypkema said he remained conscious through most of it. “Within four minutes of her call, there were seven cars outside the house, filled with angels, so to speak. It seemed like it was the whole ambulance corps. So many people to take care of me,” Rypkema said.

He remembered Don Kaufman hovering over him, and then seeing that Gloria was being helped with the shock of the incident.

Kaufman said gunshot wounds are pretty rare in his experience. He recalled two in the past 20 years. He said his job this time was mostly talking to the injured man. “I picked on him,” Kaufman said. Both men recalled the first thing Kaufman said from the head of the stairs. “Bill, what the hell did you do?”

Hunt, who is an EMT, said keeping a victim conscious is always a priority. If they’re awake, they’re alive and “they can tell you what’s going on with them,” he said.

The ambulance volunteers applied first aid and, with the aid of a Mobil Medic paramedic picked up enroute, transported Rypkema to Bon Secours Hospital in Port Jervis.

“I have no doubt that they saved my life,” Rykema said. “That was the second time that day. My wife saved my life, too.”

	TRR photo by David Hulse Lumberland firefighters and EMS volunteers, Captain Don Hunt, left, and department secretary Don Kaufman are pictured with the department’s ambulance. (Click for larger image)

Rypkema said he’s always had a healthy respect for community service volunteers, but he’d never considered just how vital they are. “I’m alive today because of them,” he reiterated.

Kaufman said a lot of people react as Rypkema did. “They know we’re around, but they really appreciate you after they’ve needed you once. As a general rule, we get good support from the community.”

After initial treatment, Rypkema was transferred to Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla. After stabilizing his condition, surgeons amputated the leg below the knee on the following Wednesday. He spent 10 days at Valhalla, followed by six weeks of rehabilitation at Helen Hayes Hospital. Today Rypkema gets around well with the aid of cane and a prosthetic leg. “I’m still hunting. I created the accident, not the gun,” he said.

Rypkema said it’s difficult to repay someone for a life, but he has asked the department for a wish list of needed equipment.

The other firefighters who responded included Roger Bisland, Charles Fallon, Ken Flieger, Terry and Jacob Knibbs, Mike McCooey, Brian, David and Pat Meehan, Brenda Olcott, Ann Steimle and Eldred American Legion Ambulance EMT Lou Pine.