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City may get 2nd ambulance at night
By BRIDGET HALL GRUMET © St. Petersburg Times, published March 8, 2001 LECANTO -- The Nature Coast Emergency Medical Service board agreed Wednesday to put a second ambulance in Crystal River every night, if the County Commission approves the plan later this month. One of the six 24-hour ambulances already is stationed in Crystal River. Nature Coast EMS has a seventh ambulance that roams the county 12 hours a day, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The board voted last month to turn the 12-hour ambulance into a 24-hour unit. After meeting with county officials last week, Nature Coast EMS executive director Teresa Gorentz recommended to the board Wednesday that the unit continue to rove the county during the day and be stationed in Crystal River at night. "We stage it wherever it is needed. During the day, Inverness, Beverly Hills and Crystal River are all high-volume areas," Gorentz said during an interview. "But at night, the east side goes to sleep and the west side wakes up." From October through December, Gorentz said, there were 216 calls for an ambulance in Crystal River at night. For 82 of those calls, an ambulance from another area was called in because the Crystal River unit was tied up elsewhere. By stationing a second ambulance in Crystal River at night, Gorentz said she hopes to avoid pulling other units away from their areas to assist with west side calls. "We're just hoping the overall effect we're going to have is to increase the level of service countywide," Gorentz said. "Everybody's ambulance will get to stay closer to its area." Gorentz said she will free up paramedics to staff the seventh ambulance at night by discontinuing use of the Quick Response Vehicle, or QRV, in Crystal River. Three paramedics alternate using the medically equipped sport utility vehicle to respond to scenes when no ambulance is nearby. The QRV paramedic can start life-saving measures but cannot take patients to the hospital, so usually an ambulance is also sent to the scene, Gorentz said. The number of ambulances and QRVs is set out in Nature Coast EMS' contract with the county, so any change requires the approval of both boards. Gorentz said she plans to make a March 27 presentation to the County Commission, seeking approval to take the Crystal River QRV off the road and put the paramedics on the seventh ambulance at night.
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