Editor’s Notes: Will an ambulance come when you call?

By Patsy Stoddard

Have you ever wondered if you should speak up about something or keep your mouth shut.
I often have this dilemma. In the newspaper business, I go to a lot of meetings and see a lot of things and attend numerous activities. I am not an expert on any one thing, but I have background information swirling around in my brain. Things that have happened in the past, things happening now and wondering how things are going to play out in the future.
The situation to which I am referring is the Emery County Ambulance Service. This is strictly an opinion piece based upon my observations over the past several years and upon several complaints I have heard in the past few months concerning the ambulance service.
The ambulance service ran since its inception under the Emery County Sheriff’s Office, this seemed like a logical fit and the ambulance service evolved over the years from a single ambulance serving the county to having an ambulance in Emery, two in Green River, one in Huntington, one in Castle Dale and one in Ferron.
A few years back, the ambulance service was taken out from under the sheriff’s office. I believe this was done, because of an extreme conflict between the then sheriff and one of the commissioners at that time.
The ambulance service was a stand alone department for a couple of years, and then put back under the sheriff’s office under a new sheriff. The new sheriff tried to mend the department and was taking steps to right the ship, but then the ambulance service was pulled back out from under the sheriff’s office again for the second time.
This stand alone department is managed by a department head ambulance supervisor.
The number of EMTs in the county has declined very severely. Very few new people are training to be new EMTs. Trainings are few and far between. Trainings are scheduled and then cancelled.
Emery County is operating at minimal capacity as far as coverage. Areas are being left uncovered, when an ambulance is out on a call. It’s scary. The Emery Town ambulance crew is always covering other parts of the county, making it difficult for them due to long travel distances.
Emery County is unique with all of its small spread out communities and a surface area the size of the state of New Hampshire. With I-70 intersecting the county and a lot of accidents down there, it spreads the ambulance crews very thin.
Something needs to be done to correct and make this a strong entity in the county again.
What can be done? We need new training, additional EMTs, a re-training schedule, advanced trainings, maybe EMTs as employees, not on-call volunteers.
I don’t know the answer, only that the commissioners need to re-evaluate this situation and figure something out. It cannot go on like it is.
How frustrating for dispatchers when a 911 call comes in to tell callers, there isn’t an ambulance available, and an ambulance from Carbon County can be sent.
A friend I have in Green River was recently in this situation. When 911 was called, there wasn’t an available ambulance, there wasn’t a crew. They were told a Carbon County ambulance could respond. This person was taken by private vehicle to Grand Junction. He could have died along the way as he was comatose, for the journey. This scared me.
I have spent many years knowing things were bad and not saying anything, just hoping things would get better. But, things have not improved, in fact I believe it’s getting much worse. Emery County has a vast number of people who come to the county to enjoy our mountains, desert and scenic vistas. One of the major issues with these visitors is they get lost and injured. This pulls needed resources away from the county people to accommodate the visitors to the area.
I like visitors I think they’re fine, but we need to have adequate resources to take care of visitors and our own county people at the same time.
I want to thank all of the EMTs we have currently and in the past. I think they do a fantastic job and I’m grateful for their service. But, why does it have to be so hard, why is there such a struggle. Let’s make it easier for these EMTs to do their jobs and respond to emergencies. Let’s get the crews back to capacity and get the EMTs the pay they need to make being an EMT more attractive. Let’s work to make our county a safe place to be.
I’m not sure how many of you know there’s been some struggles in this department. I just think this is something you as a county resident and maybe as a visitor to our county needs to be aware of and if you want to be an EMT and help out, maybe contact the ambulance service to see about getting trained. I think everyone working together can solve this problem and keep our county moving forward.