Kim Lamprecht

Kim Lamprecht may have only recently taken the helm of  Columbia Emergency Medical Services as ambulance director, but her to-do list is growing every day.

“I’m excited,” Lamprecht said of the initiatives she has planned for the service and people of Columbia.

Lamprecht comes to Columbia with 13 years of experience as a paramedic supervisor and 21 years in the EMS field with 18 as a paramedic. She is an adjunct professor at Southwestern Illinois College teaching paramedicine and if that weren’t enough, she’s completing her Bachelor of Science in Public Safety Management at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Lamprecht’s plans include hosting open houses so the community can see equipment and meet those who make up Columbia EMS.

She also wants to make CPR certification more easily attainable.

“I want more people in the community to know CPR and be willing to step up and help,” she said.

Another of Lamprecht’s passions is car seat safety. She is Columbia’s only certified car seat technician — a feat that required 36 hours of training. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 2015 estimated 46 percent of all car seats are installed incorrectly. Other organizations put that number as high as 70 percent. 

After discovering the car seat of one of her youngest family members installed incorrectly, Lamprecht said she has vowed to make car seat safety checks a priority. She also plans to send three ambulance staff to certified car seat technician training in March and will host safety checks both formally and informally for anyone who needs assistance or reassurance that their little ones are protected.

Thanks to Lamprecht, the service will also deliver an ambulance load of new toys to Shriners Hospitals for Children in St. Louis this week.

After collecting toys through a continuing education training seminar Lamprecht organizes annually, the O’Fallon and Columbia EMS departments that received the toys decided, along with  St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital — the usual recipients of the toys — that they’d go to Shriners instead.

A large warehouse fire in downtown St. Louis on Nov. 15 destroyed toys and blankets Shriners had stored there to give to their patients this Christmas season.

It should come as no surprise Lamprecht is using her resources to save Christmas for so many. It’s what she does. She saves.