County Board Changes EMT Protocol

As of Tuesday, September 4, 2012

The county board of commissioners has changed the way first responders react following an incident in the Seven Lakes West community.

Resident Max Foley recently informed board members that one morning in July his wife woke to a condition known as AFIB, in which the heart goes out of rhythm. Foley called 911, and after a delay an EMT from West End arrived in a pickup.

"Why wasn’t the ambulance from West End dispatched?" Foley asked in an address to the board during Tuesday night 's regular meeting. "With heart problems, time is of the essence. I have since found out that the ambulance dispatch priority for our area is West End, Pinehurst, Aberdeen, the Airport, Vass, and then Carthage."

Although the ambulance from Pinehurst was summoned, the responders were stopped by a locked gate and had to circle six miles to enter the gated community before help could be administered.

While Foley said he had "nothing bad to say" about the responders, it took one and one half hours from the time he made the 911 call for his wife to reach the hospital in Pinehurst.

"That's too long," he said. "Things worked out all right, but it might've been different."

After deliberating the issue, commissioners' chairman Larry Caddell asked Emergency Manager/Deputy Director Scot Brooks how soon a dual call system could be enacted. This arrangement would send a Seven Lakes or a West End ambulance to a call when the other is engaged, thus eliminating the need to wait for a Pinehurst ambulance to arrive.

Brooks said such an arrangement could be put into place as early as the next morning. The motion to authorize responders to alter their protocol was passed unanimously by the board. The decision was greeted by applause from the audience, many of whom were Seven Lakes West residents.

Read more in Friday's edition of the Pilot.

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Iam 8 months, 2 weeks ago

The problem seems to be the locked gate, not who responded. When one desires to lock themselves away from the larger community, there are consequences.

fugitiveguy 8 months, 2 weeks ago

I say, "crash the gate!!"

skylinefirepest 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Yesterday, twice, the county ran out of ambulances. Part of this is that all calls request an ambulance. If you've got a headache, stubbed toe, etc. you simply don't need two paramedics and an ambulance. A sugestion was made to the county commissioners several years ago to either put on a quick response vehicle capable of transport for the "boo boo calls" and save the hard stuff for the real emergencies, or tell them to call a taxi or a neighbor. This is a problem all over the country and won't go away until we learn to screen out the bs calls and save our resources for the real nasties.

CSmithson 8 months, 2 weeks ago

While EMS is a County department (meaning run by Moore County), this and other stories about the Seven Lakes area in regards to government services highlights an important issue. That issue is the implications of urban development in unincorporated areas “out in the county.” Be it public safety, utility, land use, or other traditional government roles, the Seven Lakes area is much more like the county’s municipalities than it is like other incorporated areas. Residents of the Seven Lakes area more and more require and/or demand urban levels of services in their unincorporated area.

By design and often by law however, counties are not generally able to provide municipal levels and types of services. While homeowners associations in private developments can fill some of the gaps, they can’t do it all. At some point, either because the community wants it or needs it (or both) the Seven Lakes area will need to incorporate or be annexed. It is repeated often that if the area were incorporated, it would be the third largest municipality in Moore County. At some point, the Moore County Board of Commissioners will no longer be able to act as the de facto Town Council for the Seven Lakes Area. Again, by design and often by law, the Commissioners can only go so far in addressing the urban needs and wants of Seven Lakes within their jurisdiction and within a county-wide budget and rate structure.

If the needs and wants of the Seven Lakes area continue to increase, it seems the solution for this “third largest town in the county” is to become a town.

mcguy1 8 months, 2 weeks ago

In a way it doesn't matter the time from the 911 call was placed to the arrival time at hospital. Also remember that when you call 911 your not the only person in the county that is calling with an emergency. And every call that is placed may not be a true emergency to everyone but it is to the caller. Moore county taxpayers money supports and provides the county wide EMS, if you think the county needs more trucks then you go recommend a tax raise and see how that goes over with the rest of the county people. Yes the county could use more trucks but EMS has to justify the need and bring it in front of the commissioners to get the monies without raising our taxes. It is not the EMS responsibility to install automatic gate openers at every gated community within the county, that is up to the community.