PENDLETON COUNTY, Ky - If you're seriously sick or injured you know an ambulance is just a phone call away. But for one northern Kentucky county, the chances a paramedic can come to your rescue are dwindling.
Pendleton County is down to just one ambulance designated "Advanced Life Support" - or ALS. As opposed to "Basic Life Support" crews with EMTs, paramedics on ALS trucks are the only medics allowed to use needles and other invasive life saving measures. County district 3 magistrate Darrin Gregg explained his views bluntly.
"I've used these ambulances multiple times," he said at his Falmouth farm. "If I have a heart attack and ALS comes to me I have a better chance of surviving. If I have a heart attack and BLS comes to me my chances go down the tubes."
According to Gregg, Pendleton
could barely make June payroll for the area’s medical units in. The Falmouth Outlook reported the ambulance district slashed salaries by $182,000, effectively ending an entire crew's shift unless budgets are re-drawn.
In searching for funding, Gregg went a few steps further than his fellow magistrates, proposing temporarily eliminating funds for life flight and urgent care. This was not a popular compromise, and his motion died without support. The remaining four members of the board instead voted to pull $50,000 to pay medics through July, but that won't put a truck back on the road. District 4 magistrate Rick Mineer says the board members all agree the ambulances are vital to the safety of the community of 14,000 people.
"I don’t think there’s any of us that wouldn’t love to see two ambulances on the (sic) road 24/7," Mineer said in a phone interview with Spectrum News. "It’s just a matter of how do you fund that and at what cost do you associate with it."
The county now waits for the local ambulance board to figure out if it can fund the life-saving work while ambulances park, ready to serve, but with nowhere to go.
NOTE: The Pendleton County Ambulance Board Meets Monday evening, July 8, to discuss further action. Their discussions could then be discussed at the fiscal court the following evening.