Rep. Tim Walburg, R-Madison, speaks on the South Dakota House floor at the Capitol in Pierre during the 2025 legislative session. (Photo by Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)

PIERRE — Two bills that could encourage and allow more people to serve in emergency medical service roles moved through a South Dakota legislative committee Tuesday morning.

Rep. Tim Walburg, R-Madison, introduced both bills, which the Health and Human Services Committee endorsed and sent to the House of Representatives.

The first bill would create legal protections for registered nurses and licensed practical nurses who provide care in the back of an ambulance.

Nurse licenses typically allow them to practice emergency medicine, but this legislation would protect them from civil liability while practicing within their scope of care in an ambulance.

It’s especially necessary in rural areas, where nurses take on many duties, according to Walburg.

“A lot of these nurses that are in the nursing home do transfer their own patients to the hospitals when needed,” Walburg said. “What better way to give a good continuum of care or handoff to that hospital than to hear from that nurse that has been caring for this patient?”

When an ambulance doesn’t have advanced medical personnel, the law would allow for the service to use a registered nurse. It would give services more freedom, said Linda Young, executive director of the South Dakota Board of Nursing.

“Nurses have been providing emergency services throughout many, many, many years, in emergency rooms, on air ambulances,” Young said. “This bill really does allow them greater flexibility to allow for those nurses to provide care on a ground ambulance.”

The second bill that passed through the committee would add firefighters and law enforcement officers to the legal definition of “ambulance operator,” and would put decisions about who can drive ambulances in the hands of local officials.

Maynard Konechne, of the South Dakota EMS Association, said emergency medical technicians too often have to drive ambulances. He said the bill would make it easier for local services to find other drivers, so EMTs can “do more of our job in the back of the ambulance, treating that patient.”

Law enforcement officers and firefighters would be able to drive an ambulance, as long as they complete CPR certification and at least six hours of training.

In his time as a Highway Patrol trooper, Rep. Jim Halverson, R-Winner, said there were many instances when the person operating the ambulance should have been administering care instead of driving.

“This is a necessary move that we make here,” he said.

As a paramedic, Rep. Eric Emery, D-Rosebud, said first responders, especially in rural areas, should work in a collaborative environment.

“Firefighters and law enforcement officers, we work all together, hand in hand,” Emery said. “It’ll put a lot of people within the EMS community here in South Dakota at ease and hopefully bring back a lot of those volunteers that had left.”

Both proposals came from a legislative summer study on emergency medical services, which was motivated in part by staffing concerns. Members of the study committee learned, for example, that the average age of an emergency medical technician in South Dakota is 51.