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Highlands County EMS Soon At Full Strength

Kathy Waters/Highlands Today

From left: Paramedic Trevor Cauffield and EMT Robert Carson bring out a stretcher on Wednesday in Sebring. Within a few weeks, Highlands County Emergency Medical Service will reopen an EMS ambulance station that was closed in April due to a shortage of paramedics.

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By Jim  Konkoly | Highlands Today

Published: October 4, 2007

SEBRING — On average, a 911 call brings a Highlands County EMS ambulance crew to the scene of a medical emergency in five to six minutes.

"That's an excellent response time for a rural county," said Steve Coltharp, interim director of county EMS.

And, Coltharp reported this week, it's going to get better soon.
In April, a shortage of paramedics forced EMS to reduce its ambulance crews from eight to seven. The agency closed its Tomoka station at Florida Hospital – Lake Placid.

With the recent hiring of two paramedics and three EMTs, staffing is back near full strength, and the Tomoka station will be reopened within weeks.

"In October, our ALS -8 (Tomoka station) will be back on board and fully staffed," Coltharp said.
"We were lucky," he added, referring to the station closing in April, "that it happened in the summer, when our calls do drop down some, rather than in the winter."

Going back to full staffing at all eight EMS stations will improve response times not only in the Lake Placid area, but also throughout the county. Multiple 911 calls at the same time, Coltharp explained, "have a cascading effect on the other stations down the line."

"Our response time has to get better, logic tells you that, because we'll have one more ambulance available," the 22-year veteran of EMS service said. "To put a figure on it, I couldn't tell you, but response times will get better, even if it's measured in seconds."

At times, he said, getting to an emergency scene 30 seconds sooner can make a big difference.
"That's not on every call, and probably not in 99 percent of the calls," he said. "But it could make a big difference in certain situations."

The county's successful recruitment of two paramedics, who are coming here from Hardee and Hendry counties, may not sound like a big step forward, but it is.

"This was critical to the county," said John Minor, county human resources director. "If you have enough people you have good response times, and if you have fewer people you run the risk of having a slower response time."

Each two-person EMS ambulance crew must have at least one paramedic. Minor said paramedics are in high demand and short supply statewide. That situation has led coastal communities such as Miami and Palm Beach to offer up to $15,000 more than the Highlands County pay rate.

Until recently, Minor said, Highlands County advertised twice for paramedics and didn't receive a single response.

Effective Monday, paramedics here received a special $1 per hour "retention and recruitment adjustment," lifting the base yearly salary of a beginning paramedic to about $41,400 per year, Minor said.

That pay boost was crucial in attracting the two certified paramedics and encouraging EMTs here to go into the year-long training to become a paramedic, Minor said.

"Most counties 'grow their own' paramedics," Minor said. "They are in short supply so the only way to compete is to take our promising EMTs, pay for their (paramedic) schooling, and in return they stay with us for at least a year."

Coltharp reported that five Highlands County EMTs recently began the one-year paramedic training program at South Florida Community College, and two more are enrolling in a paramedic school in Orlando.

By comparison, only one county EMT went into paramedic training a year ago.

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