Durham’s growth
\nis straining the capacity of emergency resources.<\/p>\n
It’s impacting
\nthe ability of EMS to respond to lower-priority 911 calls.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One family
\nfound out firsthand when there were no available units to transport their son,
\ninjured in a football game.<\/p>\n
Durham\u2019s Director of Emergency Services Mark
\nLockhart said Durham broke a record last fiscal year for calls for service, and
\nthey’re on track to break it again this year.<\/p>\n
\nThat increase puts a strain on EMS.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this point the call volume is outpacing the
\nsupply of staff and vehicles that we have and that’s created a difficult
\nsituation for us, because obviously our folks want to be able to help,\u201d
\nLockhart said. \u201cThere are very few hours of the day when we aren’t facing a
\nsituation where we have more calls than units available.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lockhart said Durham EMS is holding about 10 to 14% of lower priority calls each week, meaning a longer wait time for those without serious medical needs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those calls are being held on average for 30 to 34
\nminutes, and some have been held up to an hour.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s not a day goes by that we aren’t seeing
\nthe signs of wear and tear on the system. The system was designed to get the
\nright help to the right place at the right time,\u201d Lockhart said. \u201cThere are
\ndays where that system just – we get overwhelmed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Wake Forest family felt that wait firsthand, when their son’s leg was injured during a JV football game at Southern last week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nCody and Marquita Singleton said the Wake Forest medical team couldn’t find a
\npulse in his foot, and they were told EMS had no units available.<\/p>\n
“When you’re talking about major leg bones
\nand you know his foot is pointed in the wrong direction and contorted, and they
\ncan’t detect a pulse in his foot, it raises a lot of concern,\u201d Cody Singleton
\nsaid. \u00a0<\/p>\n
They ultimately took him to the hospital
\nthemselves.<\/p>\n
“We can’t wait here indefinitely without any
\ntimeline for when they’re going to be coming to take him to emergency services,\u201d
\nSingleton said. <\/p>\n
Lockhart emphasized, EMS staff wants to help.<\/p>\n
\u201cKnow that we’re coming. We’re doing the best we
\ncan. Some calls just take higher priority than others,\u201d Lockhart said. \u201cWhile
\nwe want to respond to every call when it’s received, we don’t want there to be
\na delay. At this point in time, that’s just not the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
WRAL Investigates <\/a>has covered EMS staffing issues<\/a> multiple Lockhart says the first step is filling all “Fully staffed would mean we have all the The most recent county budget added funding for “This is an issue that has continued despite In 2022, Durham County added a thriving wage Lockhart also says the County has been replacing Lockhart says the County has switched providers EMS also has a $6,000 sign-on bonus for certain In addition to hiring incentives, Durham County Recently, the County added a basic life support Lockhart points out, only 58% of patients EMS \u201cOur field crews are working diligently to clear
\ntimes in recent years.<\/p>\n
\nvacancies, and then adding more staffing positions to meet the demand,
\nemphasizing the difference between those.<\/p>\n
\nambulances and all the staff we need to answer the call volume that exists in
\nthe county – we’re not there yet,\u201d he said. \u201cWe’re trying to fill all available
\nvacancies, and we’ll ask for additional positions once that is done.”<\/p>\n
\nmore positions, and ten members of an EMS academy just graduated, with 18 more
\nstarting an academy in September.<\/p>\n
\nthe county’s efforts to address it,\u201d Lockhart said.<\/p>\n
\ninitiative to adjust salaries to be more competitive.<\/p>\n
\nits ambulance fleet for the last several years. However, the time from ordering
\nto delivering an ambulance takes about three years. That issue is a holdover
\nfrom the pandemic.<\/p>\n
\nthat should cut that time in half, with five ambulances arriving last week.<\/p>\n
\npositions and is actively recruiting at colleges.<\/p>\n
\nEMS is also changing how they respond to calls.<\/p>\n
\nunit, utilizing either two EMTs or an EMT and an advanced EMT, depending on the
\ntype of call.<\/p>\n
\nresponds to need to be transported to the hospital. He says they\u2019re looking at
\nother ways to serve those 42% of patients who either didn\u2019t need to be
\ntransported, or didn\u2019t need EMS.<\/p>\n
\ncalls as quickly and safely as possible so they can turn around and take the
\nnext call,\u201d Lockhart said. \u201cWe’re making the best progress we can with the
\nresources that we’ve got.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Durham’s growth is straining the capacity of emergency resources. It’s impacting the ability of EMS to respond to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":827103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,76429,122355,45908,21305,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-827102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-durham","tag-durham-county","tag-ems","tag-first-responders","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/827103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}