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Is help too far away?: Woman's death raises response time concerns for rural residentsMay 23, 2010 (The Beaumont Enterprise - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Lynda Morgan died waiting for an ambulance to respond to her home in Erin community, about 11 miles south of Jasper. An Acadian Ambulance unit driving from Silsbee Wednesday arrived at Morgan's residence about 90 minutes after Morgan's husband, Fred, called 9-1-1, said Morgan's daughter, Loretta Bean. She said her 63-year-old mother, who has a history of asthma and was on oxygen, was having difficulty breathing, but was relatively fine for about 45 minutes to an hour after the emergency call was made. The Jasper County Sheriff's Office, which received the 9-1-1 call, operates on a rotating system with ambulance companies and Acadian was next in line. There is confusion surrounding the ambulance response time to Morgan's house. Her death has caught the attention of rural officials. Monday, Jasper Mayor Mike Lout plans to meet with representatives of local ambulance services to search for a solution. "We want to get together with everybody and try to get an answer to our ambulance issue here," Lout said Friday by phone. "We don't know if we can do it, but we can try." Lout, with longtime roots in the community, said he has noticed ambulance service problems grow over the years, especially after 9-1-1 spread to rural Texas and ambulances became used more often. "I think it's just a problem with the limited resources of a small town and a small county," Lout said. Ambulance service issues are common in rural areas, said Steph Larsen, assistant director for organizing at the Center for Rural Affairs based in Lyons, Neb. In remote communities with fewer residents per square mile, emergency medical service often comes from towns that can support an ambulance, and help can be 20 to 30 minutes away when ambulances are available. "When you're in an emergency situation, time really matters," Larsen said Friday by phone. "Forty-five minutes can really mean something." Community solution In most cases, emergency medical service issues are solved by the community and often with volunteer help -- using first responders with some medical training to fill the gap before ambulances arrive. The scarcity of ambulances available in Jasper County means that sometimes dispatchers have to send first responder units, police or firefighters to emergency calls, said Laura Moore, communications supervisor at the Jasper County Sheriff's Office. "With a lot of problems in rural communities, the best solutions are those that start within the community," Larsen said. In the southern portion of Jasper County, fire departments in Buna and Evadale have their own responder units, said Moore. Moore said the county's limitations on ambulance availability is not unique to Jasper County. However, recent changes in ambulance service might provide some relief for citizens in Jasper. Earlier this month, another ambulanceservice, Northeast Texas EMS, started to work in the Jasper County area, and Acadian will increase service in Jasper County starting this week, said Moore. When Acadian -- a 3,000-employee company -- takes over Stat Care's territory in five Southeast Texas counties after midnight Tuesday, the ambulance service should have the ability to reach more people, said Mike Burney, Acadian's vice president of operations for Southeast Texas. Moore said Acadian already has responded in the southern part of the Jasper County, but next week the company will go on full rotation, serving all of Jasper County. Acadian's contiguous service area from Beaumont to northern Jasper County will allow the company to back up areas with ambulances. If the Jasper area's ambulances are in use, the Silsbee office can temporarily send one, Burney said, while the Beaumont office's ambulances can assist in Hardin County's territory. "We'll be closer, and we'll be quicker," Burney said. "The residents will not have to worry about change. They will just have to dial 9-1-1." Miscommunication In the Morgan case, Burney said that dispatchers from Jasper County told Acadian that the emergency was in Buna, about 20 miles south of Erin, and that caused a delay. The dispatcher who took Morgan's call said when she initially called Acadian, she said the caller's location was in Buna, Moore said. The dispatcher then made another call to Acadian to correct herself and said that the location was north of Buna in the Erin area, said Moore. By that time, the dispatcher had called other ambulances in the area, but none were available, according to Moore. Moore said it is not unusual to call Acadian for emergencies in Jasper. On days when dispatch has taken a few medical calls for the county, they will call Acadian and ask the company to stage a unit in Jasper in order to respond to other emergencies. Almost a year ago, fire officials with the China Volunteer Fire Department told The Enterprise that they were seeking a solution for long waits for ambulances in their area. Doug Saunders, fire chief of the China Volunteer Fire Department, said the area has not had problems with response times since Southeast Texas EMS assumed responsibility of primary ambulance responder in Jefferson County. Southeast Texas EMS, a relatively small company, operates out of Beaumont and its units respond from the city's west end, he said. "It seems as though they've stepped up to the plate," Saunders said. In August 2009, StatCare EMS was replaced by Southeast Texas EMS in Jefferson County after StatCare informed the county it could no longer afford to service Bevil Oaks, Cheek, China and Nome, according to Enterprise archives. Despite the changes, Saunders said some response times remain long -- 10 to 20 minutes. "Anytime you live in rural America and you're not paying for a service to be on standby and staffed, you can expect those type of delays," said Saunders. To see more of The Beaumont Enterprise, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.www.beaumontenterprise.com/. Copyright (c) 2010, The Beaumont Enterprise, Texas Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |