Small county, big assignment: Anderson County EMS answers the call

By CHARLES O'NEAL
Anderson County EMS

LAWRENCEBURG — The story of David and Goliath comes to mind when looking at some of the challenges recently taken on by the EMT’s and Paramedics at this small rural EMS agency, but when confronted with the challenge, Public Safety Director Charlie O’Neal shrugged his shoulders and said “We can do it!”, and do it they did.

Anderson County EMS continues to be active in the hurricane relief efforts recently undertaken by Kentucky EMS agencies. O’Neal was contacted by state EMS officials as the result of a formal Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) request from the State of Texas asking that Kentucky EMS units be deployed to assist with evacuations prior to the arrival of the hurricane and to assist with care and transport of individuals following the arrival of Hurricane Rita.

Anderson County’s first deployment consisted of one ambulance and four staff members. O’Neal said, “Four staff members almost constitutes one third of our total full time staff so it was quite a commitment by our agency. We are proud of the staff members that volunteered to take the assignment, but we are likewise proud of the staff members who remained and stepped up to the plate to fill the gaps left by those who went to Texas. We could not have deployed four staff members at once without the dedication of the rest of the staff.”.

Staff members from the first deployment worked in and around the Beaumont, Texas, area staffing a triage center and completing transports from Beaumont into Houston hospitals. The current deployment of two employees is based at a Port Arthur, Texas, hospital and is assisting in the emergency department and helping to make transports outside of the affected area.

O’Neal commented that when it rains, it pours. “After the first deployment, the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) was activated and patients were flown into Blue Grass Field in Lexington. We dispatched staff and vehicles to assist with moving those patients to surrounding hospitals and maintained our normal staffing throughout both operations”, O’Neal stated.

Anderson County EMS is based in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, and responds to approximately 3,000 calls annually in a service area with a population of approximately 21,000.

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