As more folks move to and work and play in Grimes, the county’s emergency management committee’s looking to accommodate the increase in medical emergencies that brings.
After studying four years of St. Joseph ambulance data, Chris Kehl told county commissioners this month his EMS committee’s found a steady growth in ambulance response times.
He reported that Medic 31, the Navasota-based ambulance, was able to be pulled from 911 service to do non-emergency and emergency transfers out of the hospital and out of the nursing home, which left a gap in protection.
And to address that gap, Kehl announced that St. Jo will begin providing a fourth ambulance for the county’s use beginning August 1st.
Kehl told the court that ambulance will also be based in Navasota, with the understanding that it will be primarily dedicated to the transfers, so that Medic 31 is not taken off the street from 911 calls, but it will also be used to back our other ambulances up on 911 calls.
Another problem, Kehl reported, is getting defibrulators to heart attack victims. Thanks to private donations, he continued, the first six have already been put into sheriff’s vehicles. He said there is some other funding coming as well, and it is his hope that in the next couple of months they will get all of the sheriff’s and constables’ vehicles equipped and get everyone trained on their use. He explained that they are usually the first on the scene of medical emergencies.
And Kehl added his committee’s still working through that pile of ambulance data to ensure that the most effective placement of ambulances along the county’s 600 miles of road is ongoing.