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County Discusses EMS Response

08/03/09 10:24 pm | reporter: Brian Damewood producer: Scott Wilson

search tags: ems • emergency • response

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Campbell Co. EMS Looks to Improve

Campbell Co., VA - Campbell County EMS is struggling to reach their response time goals, and that's causing public safety staff to make some changes to how they do business.

The county had an EMS advisory committee meeting Monday.

One of their priorities is to have three ambulances countywide that are ready 24-7. And another crew that can be called on during peak hours.

But even with these changes, volunteers say there are several other challenges preventing faster response times.

Campbell County's Deputy Director of Public Safety, Jason Stroud says rescue crews have a goal to arrive on the scene within 15 minutes, 90% of the time. In July, they only met that goal 44% of the time.

Jason Stroud, Dep. Dir. of Public Safety - "We've had some unfortunately lengthy response times that we know are unfortunate and we can do better at, so we're working with the rescue squads and county administration to do the most fiscally responsible methods we can to improve services."

And that's what volunteers and county staff met to talk about. By October 1st, EMS officials plan to have ambulances staffed 24-7 in the Timberlake area, Altavista and Brookneal. They also want to have a volunteer crew ready during peak hours based in the Rustburg area. Plus, 911 dispatchers plan to make their call procedure more efficient.

Stroud - "We're going to speed that process up and give that call to our career crews a lot sooner."

Stroud says supervisors will also move crews to daily hot spots, where a lot of calls are happening.

Stroud - "By moving the units to the center of the county, they can reach out throughout the county a lot quicker without staying in a corner."

In spite of these changes, Rustburg volunteer Vicki Ennis says too many people are abusing ambulances for rides to the hospital for headaches, or hurt toes.

Ennis - "We have had calls where we'll be in route with one of these mundane calls where it doesn't amount to anything but a ride to the hospital, and you'll hear a serious call go out and there's no one to respond to it."

But Ennis says you never know which call is serious, so having a volunteer crew ready during peak hours would help.

Vicki Ennis, Rustburg EMS Volunteer - "I could fill in one of those days. Maybe not the same person working five days a week, but you can get volunteers to staff it."

Jason Stroud says he needs more volunteers, especially people who can help during regular business hours. That's when the county gets a lot of calls, but they don't have enough workers to get to them on time.

Click here if you are interested in volunteering

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Latest Comments on "County Discusses EMS Response"

posted by: ChrissyDx3 on 9:16 am on 08/04/09

I am so happy that Campbell County is trying to get their act together with the EMS response time. I worry so much that if something happened to one of my kids that there would be nobody there to help. One time about 3 years ago, my husband woke at 2 o'clock in the morning. He is a big 240 lb. man and was rolling around the floor, crying, yelling in pain and vomiting. I thought he was dying, so I call 911. No one showed up and 30 min. later I get a call back from 911 that no one in all of Campbell County was answering and did I want her to keep trying or just take him myself! Lucky for us he was just having a kidney stone, but that was the scariest night of my life. So knowing that they are working on improving there response time makes me feel a lot safer.

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