A new reserve ambulance service will provide basic life support and transfers for the county. The Monroe County Board of Commissioners and Monroe Fire Protection District held a ribbon cutting ceremony Wednesday to unveil the new trucks.
The ambulance will be staffed with two EMTs and serve as backup for 911 calls in Monroe County. It’s meant to address a shortage of available ambulances to respond to emergency calls.
“We're now able to help provide another additional service to our community that's needed,” said Jason Allen, public information officer for the Monroe Fire Protection District. “We see all the time that there's more of a burden on the EMS system over and over. Due to that burden, there's a lot of times that extended responses come from out of county for an ambulance.”
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“We're now going to start putting ambulances into service as a reserve backup. So when all the IU Health ambulances are out in service, then our apparatus will actually respond to help alleviate that stress.”
The Monroe County Board of Commissioners allocated funding for four ambulances in total. The first two will be live this week; one in service, and the other as backup. Funding comes from the American Rescue Plan Act.
