For Release: IMMEDIATE
Date: December 16, 2005

Foul Weather - Four Wheels

RALEIGH – Dorothea Dix Hospital is in need of some real foul weather friends. When snow falls, most of us here in the Triangle make like bears and snuggle down to hibernate for a day or two in our nice warm homes waiting for the snowplows and sun before venturing out on the roads. However, the dedicated men and women who work at Dorothea Dix Hospital don’t have that luxury. Hospital patients need care 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week no matter what the weather and the staff must sometimes brave icy roads to get to work.

That’s why the Dix Hospital Community Services office needs a reliable group of foul weather friends with four-wheel drive vehicles to serve as volunteers for the Dix Four-by-Four Club. Community Relations Director Faye McArthur is calling for local volunteers to be on standby with four-wheel drive vehicles to help ferry key hospital staff into work when ice and snow make normal driving conditions too hazardous for normal vehicles.

“The Dix Four-by-Four Club is absolutely essential in helping get key staff like nurses, health care workers, food and nutrition staff and others here to the campus during adverse weather like last winter’s ice storm. Unlike businesses, Dix Hospital can’t close in bad weather and it needs its staff people here to take care of patients,” she says.

McArthur said that potential volunteers must have a valid North Carolina driver’s license and a four-wheel drive vehicle. For more information about volunteering for the Dix Four-by-Four Club, contact Faye McArthur, Dorothea Dix Community Relations Office, (919) 733-5454.

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