Wednesday night, 16-August, County Council met in a special session to address our ambulance needs. This meeting involved the Fire-Rescue Commission and Officials from Colleton Medical Center. County Council was very supportive of the work our agency is performing and has authorized the Fire-Rescue Commission to purchase and staff an additional ALS ambulance. This endeavor will improve services in the community and allow us to better assist the Hospital in transferring critical, emergent patients to other hospitals. Based on call volume data provided by the Hospital, we anticipate assisting Colleton Medical Center with approximately 30 to 40 inter-hospital transports per month. Our agency will not be involved in non-emergent or basic transports. This ALS unit will be operated on a 24 hour basis and operated from Station # 26 on Mount Carmel Road. It will decrease response times on the northwestern areas of the county.

We anticipate the unit being operational in approximately 30 to 45 days. In addition to providing another ALS unit to respond to incidents, this medic unit will allow a more rapid method of transferring patients to a higher level of care. We are excited to be able to improve services to our citizens and thankful for the support we have received. This is another opportunity to provide increasingly better service for our community and patients.