SALEM – The safety committee discussed the city’s long embattled ambulance ordinance Thursday.

Councilwoman and Safety Committee Chair Jayne Bricker said that concerns had been raised regarding the ordinance, which was last updated in 2023, and that certain elements of the ordinance that needed “to be clarified or potentially adjusted,” noting that the committee was looking to ensure that the fire department and private ambulance companies could continue to collaborate effectively. Bricker said that the committee had received a suggestion from Fire Chief Scott Mason to change the time that a private ambulance company must arrive on the scene for an emergency 90% of the time from within nine minutes of receiving the call to five minutes.

Councilman Jeff Stockman said the National Fire Protection Association recommends the acceptable arrival time for first responders in the event of a life-threatening emergency as four minutes, and that he didn’t feel it was realistic for a private ambulance to arrive only a minute later.

“I have a hard time regulating an ambulance company to be on scene in that same time. You’re giving them one more minute and they’re the second person to be called because first responders are always called first and then that information is relayed to the ambulance company…I don’t think that one minute gives them enough time to get there,” said Stockman.

Bricker said that while she understands Mason’s concerns about discrepancies regarding EMT Ambulance, which is currently the only company in the city’s ambulance rotation, meeting the required the nine-minute arrival time that she had spoken with someone from the city’s dispatch about the and learned that EMT are not always being called at the same time the fire department is toned to respond which could explain those discrepancies.

“As far as EMT getting to the scene, they may not be getting there nine minutes from that first tone out, but potentially are getting there nine minutes from their tone out,” said Bricker.

Capt. Shawn Mesler argued that the private ambulance crews are also first responders, and that if they aren’t being dispatched at the same time as the fire department then that is a systemic issue that needs to be addressed. He further said that the fire department’s concerns are entirely based on what’s best for the patient, and that the same was not necessarily true for a private company.

Mesler said that the department is forced to wait for EMT to arrive rather than being able to transport patients immediately, costing time which could be essential in an emergency response. Mesler also accused EMT of routinely falsifying their units’ projected response times and locations and of failing to keep a unit within city limits as the ordinance requires. Stockman and Bricker argued that under the current ordinance that in a life-threatening emergency the fire department can transport immediately and only needs to wait if the patient is stable.

However, Mesler argued that during an emergency response they cannot always know that a patient is in stable condition and can safely wait for the private ambulance to arrive as a seemingly stable situation like a broken leg could lead to potentially fatal internal bleeding with no exterior indications, or that a symptom like a headache or dizziness could be tied to multiple issues ranging in severity from imbalanced blood sugar to a cardiac event without medics being able to know for certain on scene.

“If you had something going on with your family…would you really want someone sitting and waiting with your family for someone to come from somewhere else when there could be something else going on that we don’t even know,” said Mesler. “We deal with that every day, and we have citizens complaining to us every day. What would you like us to do, give people your phone numbers and say, ‘these are the people who make the decisions?'”

Firefighter Kevin Bryan also argued that even if the disparity is being caused by delays at the dispatching level, the end result is still patients and the fire department being forced to wait on scene for EMT rather than being transported to a medical facility for treatment.

“Our dispatch takes it and tones us out in response, then our dispatcher calls their dispatch. I don’t know how many people they talk to on their side and how long it takes from that dispatcher to actually contact the crew and dispatch the call which seems to be a big part of this if you want to rely on response times,” said Bryan. “If it is taking two or three minutes for them to be dispatched that just extends the nine minutes further out and we’re on scene even longer now.”

Councilman Ron Zellers asked if residents can still specifically request the fire department respond and transport them when calling 911 which Mesler confirmed. Zellers also asked if EMT stopped serving the city which it has been alleged to have done in the past what would the plan be, and Mesler said that the fire department would transport with its own ambulance and would rely on its mutual aid agreements with other local departments in the event of multiple medical emergencies overlapping.

Bricker and Stockman argued that if EMT pulled out of the city the fire department would not be able to handle to volume of calls the city receives with a single ambulance noting that there have been over 1,000 transports between the fire department and EMT this year already. However, Mesler argued that the Sebring fire department has been able to meet a similar volume of calls on their own with a single unit and less staffing, he also argued that while EMT might threaten to do so, operating in the city is too profitable for the company to actually follow through on that threat.

While no formal action was taken, the committee agreed that they needed to determine when the nine minute timer period is being tracked from and how long the potential delay between the fire department and EMT being notified is before moving forward. Bricker also reiterated that she felt the standards within the ordinance were sound, and that solidifying the dispatch procedure and enforcing compliance with those standards was the real issue.