Local & State Headlines

Lee County expands EMS

• U.S. 82 West in Lee County gets its first ambulance.

Susan McCord

LEESBURG — While there had yet to be a call for the new ambulance and paramedic stationed for 9 hours at the Palmyra Fire Station on U.S. 82 West, Lee County officials were pleased Monday afternoon the option was available.

“I’ve been preaching this for two years,” said Lee Commissioner Ed Duffy, who was elected to represent the county’s southwestern Palmyra District 2 years ago.

“It was the main concern of people I spoke to,” Duffy said. The station is in the center of Lee’s fastest-growing commercial district along U.S. 82 West.

Duffy and two other commissioners, Morris Leverett and Wally Roberts, praised the new ambulance, which will be available and staffed around-the-clock with an on- duty paramedic and an EMT- trained firefighter.

The ambulance cuts response times in the area from 15-20 minutes, the time it took an ambulance to travel from the Century District station, down to 5-6, Duffy said.

“We’ve been working on it for three-and-a-half years,” said Commissioner Wally Roberts.

“This is one of the most populous areas from a development standpoint,” he said.

Winston Oxford, director of the Lee County Development Authority, said the 82 corridor was going to “explode” with commercial development during the next two to three years.

Lee Superintendent of Schools Larry Walters, a resident of a nearby subdivision, said he too was glad to know the ambulance was nearby.

Rep. Ed Rynders, R-Lee County, whose House District 152 includes the Palmyra district, said Duffy had raised the ambulance issue “the first time” he knocked on his door.

“As vice chair of the health and human services committee, I understand the importance of increased access to health care,” Rynders said. “These kinds of things are important — huge.”

Lee fire and emergency medical services were debated at length during the spring as the commission considered adding annual fees or raising property taxes to balance a budget heavily burdened by the cost of fire and EMS.

The commission eventually abandoned plans to raise taxes, impose the fees or fund the same services in Commissioner Dennis Roland’s rural Smithville-Chokee District, but agreed last month to find funds to operate the ambulance on U.S. 82.

Lee EMS Director Bobby Watkins said to staff the service, four full-time paramedics will be hired, to administer lifesaving drugs, insert airway adjuncts to aid breathing and use a cardiac monitor and defibrillator to stabilize a patient having a heart attack.

Salaries will be paid from the county’s general fund, Duffy said.

More Headlines>>