At 3:15 p.m. on Wednesday, March 5, 911 received a call advising that a 3-year-old boy had fallen and was unresponsive, having seizures and bleeding from the mouth. Because the Henry County EMS emergency ambulance had already responded to a traffic accident and was en route to Baptist Northeast, the call was dispatched to Eminence Volunteer Service.

Five minutes later, because no one had responded, a Code Yellow alert was dispatched, calling for any available ambulance to respond.

Immediately afterward, EMT Stevie Lucas called the EMS building and asked that the transport ambulance meet him at the scene.

According to Eminence Police Chief Mount Hadden, who was with Lucas at the time of the call, “the comment was made, ‘No, I’m too busy.’”

Hadden and Lucas jumped in a patrol car and drove to the location. At 3:22 p.m., Hadden called dispatch to advise that he would personally transport the child to Shelby County to meet with a Shelby County EMS paramedic.

Eleven minutes later, the child was en route to the hospital in the care of the Shelby County paramedic. By that time, he had already stopped breathing.

The child died the next day.

From the time the initial 911 call was made to the time the child was in the hand’s of a trained paramedic, 18 minutes had passed. That may not sound like a lot of time, but to the child’s parents, as well as Hadden and Lucas, those 18 minutes seemed an eternity.

Why didn’t an ambulance respond to the scene? Why were there so few volunteers available to fill the void when the paid service was unavailable? Had the response time been shorter, would the child have lived?

“He was a special needs child, definitely,” Eminence City Counselor Kelly Mathis said at last Monday’s city council meeting. “I don’t know that anyone could have done anything for this child. But that could have been my child, or that could have been your child...”

While we will never know if the outcome would have been different had EMS responded more quickly, the tragedy of March 5 has sparked a number of questions and concerns throughout the community, evidenced by discussions at several meetings in the past two weeks. Everyone has ideas, but few of them could be easily accomplished.

“We talk about raising taxes, we talk about this and we talk about that,” Hadden said at last Monday’s meeting. “We bitch and we gripe and we jump around. But something needs to be done.

“I made a personal choice,” Hadden continued. “I’ve taken this personally, and I’m not going to let this die. To me, enough is enough. When these people get sick, let’s give them a chance.”

Saturday morning, county officials, EMTs and concerned citizens held a strategic planning meeting at the EMS building to tackle these topics and others facing the county emergency services. Key points discussed include the current strengths and weaknesses of the EMS program, ways in which it could be improved, and obstacles standing in the way of that improvement.

Such barriers include a lack of money to support the program, too few volunteers who have the time to devote to extensive training, high turnover rates, a large area to cover (289 square miles), lack of communication and insufficient public education.

“I understand budgetary restraints, but to me, human life is the most important thing we have,” Hadden said. “If enough people truly and sincerely care about what’s going on, things can change.”

Magistrate Wayne Gunnell agreed. “We’ve got to change the attitudes,” he said. “There are a lot of ways to raise money, and we’ve got to have the guts to do it.”

Those who attended Saturday’s meeting were assigned to subcommittees to research and gather more information on costs, training, recruitment, retention, communications and community education. They will report back on their findings at the next planning meeting on April 12.

Community leaders and EMS workers welcome community input and creative solutions to the problems facing the emergency services. Ultimately, the quality of life of everyone in Henry County will be affected.