Saline County emergency call takes 20 minutes to respond. Feel safer now?
As reported to Disclosure staff, a recent 911 call for a broken leg is the latest casualty of a predicted loss in quality and response time to residents of Saline County.
As reported recently here on Disclosure, the Saline County 911/Emergency Services board voted how 911 calls are handled in Saline County by awarding the contract for such calls to Rick Collier’s Saline County Ambulance Service, not a locally owned service. Thus, essentially reducing Saline County from two ambulance services to one for 911 calls.
A call was made to respond to a broken leg. Saline County Ambulance Service had all their trucks out of the county on other calls. Due to the new changes, instead of calling MedForce, a local Eldorado based ambulance service that was in the area and available, the call was given to Gallatin County Ambulance Service, another ambulance company also owned by Saline County Ambulance Service owner, Rick Collier.
As seen in the video grabbed from a MedForce employee’s YouTube account, a ready available ambulance was not being utilized, thus resulting in excessively long wait times for emergency victims. Instead of being blessed with TWO ambulance services in Saline County, we are now down to one. And what is appearing to be not a very good one at that.
Is this the way you want your 911 service run? You pay for it. No one shows up to the meetings. Maybe so. All Disclosure can say is, we hope WE never need to call an ambulance in Saline County because chances are, you might not make it through alive.
Short URL: http://www.disclosurenewsonline.com/?p=13688
Posted by Jack Howser
on Jul 24 2012. Filed under Breaking, Saline.
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Well here is a good one for ya ! About 4 years ago I had to call 911 for an elderly gentleman I was looking after , he was completely out of his head , had fallen out of bed , bleeding , well you get the pic ! Well Saline County showed up and I told them I wanted him to be taken to the hospital , they told me it was his decision and I couldn’t make him go . I explained and showed them my power of attorney papers for his health care ! They walked out and left after about 30 min of standing around , not even checking him out , long story short , I along with some friends loaded him up , on the way to the hospital he went into full cardiac arrest ! I pulled up at the hospital just in time for the staff at hmc to save his life ! They should run Saline county ambulance service clean out of town ! Almost everyone of their employees are so obese that they can’t move ! Put them on a required weight plan if they are going to have to save someones lives were minutes count ! Lord knows a two ton tub of lard can’t run very fast !
Let me say I know people who work for both company. Each service has there faults. Saline county should start posting what faults medforce has. They are not stooping to that level
I will tell you another error in 911 and Saline co. ambuance. In may 2007 my husband found me unconsious and called 911. I live in the burg not too far away from them. My husband said you could here the ambulances sirens on Barnett street. The ambulance service never located my house. A nurse I worked with from HMC helped load me into her car and drove us to the hospital. I had a massive brain aneurysm and could have died. Med Force did the transfer to evansville. I have been the RN transfer nurse with both ambulance services on numerous occassions. My fav transfers were always with Med force. As for weight it has nothing to do with a persons skills or quality of care they will recieve. The crew is not required to run. Slap em on a gurney and go. As for your POA it is entirely useless if the gentleman was in his right mind and able to make a decision for himself. A POA only comes into effect if he is not able to make a decision for himself or not in his right mind. Then and only then would that decision be left to you.
My question is why if all these complaints then why is nothing getting done to the medics. If all is true I’m sure if a family member cared they just wouldn’t let it go. Hmmm is it cause none of these complaints on saline county can be backed up
The gentelman was completly out of his mind , he had overdosed himself !
If any one listened to the scanner calls that’s all it would take to back this story up its not just a one time deal its weekly almost daily
Demographics is not the job of a medic why didn’t they (911 dispatcher) dispatch the closet ambulance is the question that should be answered and corrected here its not a matter if the medics did there job we all know they did their job
Hmmmmmm, I know of two calls that Saline county arrived on the scene of…….. One man was a veteran, had been to the hospital for nose bleeds…..One of the ambulance crew made the statement “what, he wasn’t coddled enough at the hospital?” I mean really ? This man later stopped breathing and passed away and the nose bleeds had been part of complications of another illness. They also came to another residence I know of and with the door open to the residence of a man having a heart attack couldn’t find their way inside……As I stated, the door was standing WIDE OPEN. There was 5 doors to the residence, but they could of beaten on the other 4 that weren’t open if it was that confusing. then when they finally got to the hospital, the driver was more worried about putting his jacket on than getting the cot out of the back of the rig. Id just assume drive myself or have a family member take me if needed, that way i know I get there within 5.
I just think its funny that none of this has ever came out since the 911 bored voted. If saline county has done such bad things the state of ill. would have came in and took care of the problem. Like I said since the meeting didn’t go the way some people wanted for some reason now all these stories are coming out. I have stories of my own but I have no reason to dog anyone or another service. Its like grade school when you didn’t get your way.
Well Mike you have a very warped views of funny.. These situations are anything but funny to the people that it happened to!!! And there have
Its not warped views of funny. Stuff like this is not funny but its funny because nothing has been said til the 911 meeting. This isn’t high school. These companies are suppost to have adults working for them and these are people who are called to save lives. There are all these stories about Saline County on here but there is untold stories about the other company that everyone knows about why aren’t they on here.
mike hmmm r u the mike from the county 911 board trying to defend your vote
Nice video, it should be nominated for America’s Funniest Home Videos. I’m just wondering why an ambulance that is supposed to be based in Eldorado (Saline Co.) is sitting in Gallatin Co. Filming a Gallatin Co. Ambulance responding to an emergency call? Could it be that the 2 filming the ambulance are trying to pick up some pointers on how an ambulance is supposed to respond to an emergency? That would be my guess.
@laura vickers, is your comment referring to the medic that the service in Eldorado recently fired for not assessing her patient and obtaining a refusal? BTW you mention obesity. I happen to know that there is a medic working in Eldorado right now that when he eats you better not have your hands and feet near him. You can always tell what was on last months menu because it’s still on his shirt from where he dribbled it. You guys and gals over should pitch in and buy captain buttcrack some suspender. Rural King has them cheap.
You shouldn’t be talking smack about anyone because I know you works and you leave alot to be desired. You have been weighted and measured and found wanting.
That’s fairly quippy, coming from somebody who acquired his medic license while in prison for MURDER.
Got anything else to share, Mr. Kaye? How bout what’s prison time like?
Well let’s see Jack, it’s not a secret that I did time and as a matter of fact my Medic License was just renewed by the state and as a paramedic my record speaks for itself and my patient care has always been the utmost. But since you opened the door and chose to go this route I can point fingers and dates of when the incidents occured and I’m sure the people that were involved won’t appreciate it. Now are ya sure ya wanna go there?
Bring it, killer.
Get em Jack !
the people of medforce r not out to attack the employees of sca this is about the 911 board and their decisions. For not contacting the closet ambulance to respond to a 911 call this is about public safety
You’re right but when people start slamming people about their looks and trash talking I’m going to defend the service I work for. We are all in the same profession and should be working to to service the community the best way we can. Not play 4th grade you broke my GI Joe and I’m gonna be pissed at you. So your point s well taken and my point is that people that live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones because no one is perfect.
And just so everyone is clear…everybody you’re slamming here is DECEASED, right?
And you’re referencing MILLER AMBULANCE, not MedForce…right?
And the owners of Miller went bankrupt…right??
And you haven’t shared with us yet why you killed that poor lil old lady…Killer.
Come on. You’re on a roll. Don’t stop now. Hit it a little harder…it’ll come.
Well Jack, you failed to mention that I work for that service in February 1999. Does the owner there still keep expired drugs in his drug boxes because I remember I opened one of the drug boxes and there was an expired bag of Lidocaine that had expired in September 1998 and was told by a senior medic that still works there “just pretend it’s good Dave, just pretend it’s good.” I’m sure the public would have appreciated having a drug that had been expired for 5 months given to them. February 1999 I just came on duty and was called to intercept with another Eldorado basic crew for a patient with a full blown stroke. When I told my partner (he still works there) to apply the cardiac monitor he told me he couldn’t. When I asked why he told me there was only 1 battery for the entire service and it was on our ambulance. When I confronted the owner I was told he would have to charge a battery for me. Good thing it wasn’t a cardiac arrest I intercepted because there were also only 1 IV needle on the ambulance and when I asked about that I was told that supplies hadn’t been ordered because the owner had to buy parts for a car he was refurbishing so there was no money to buy IV supplies.
Things I have never done on an ambulance or as a medic. I have never transported my family members in an ambulance with a patient on board so they can view a patient’s medical history (HIPPA) violation but they have. I have never made an EMT push drugs that was beyond their scope of practice but they have. I have never driven through a fast food drive through with a patient in the back but they have.
I worked there for 1 week and quit because I was coming off a 24 hour shift in Eldorado and I woke up with flea bites all over me from the cats they had in the base. Even in prison I didn’t wake up with bug bite on me so that should tell you that prison was cleaner than the base that housed EMTs.
And just so you have your facts straight Jack, in 29 years as a medic I’ve only been disciplined once for smoking in an ambulance.
How was my prison experience, it was a humbling for me and a learning experience. I survived 29 1/2 years there. Think you could?
ROTFL a convicted murderer with hubris.
I’m dyin here.
You may be responsible for that, Killer.
Since you’re so into gut spilling right now, why don’t you tell us all about your crime. Who was it? Where was it? How was it? You know, all those pertinent factoids. Things people really want to know…not how you want to slam everybody around you on a topic TOTALLY UNRELATED to the article, which is about the 911 board having an ILLEGAL MEETING, NOT about this service or that service. Those were just tangentials.
Well Jack my crime was old news since it happened 40 years ago and I was originally commenting on the video (that was filmed while by 2 individuals sitting in an ambulance that were out of their coverage area)filming an ambulance that was responding to a 911 emergency that was within Gallatin Co. Which is their coverage area. My other comment was about a person calling EMTs that work at Saline County Obese. You opened the door about my criminal past.
It was nice talking to ya Jack. Have a good night!
well dave medforce has only been in business since 2004 so you couldn’t have worked there you must be talking about miller ambulance which was owned by someone else
Same difference and the same people are working at Med-Force that were at Millers when I worked there. Only the name has changed. Have a good night.
Um. I think the OWNERS have changed too…right?
Just like a con. Can’t talk about what’s real…has to make immaterial things “real.” Right?
Well dave the people on here talking about the guys working being fat slobs dont work at medforce so u r the one who works for a service that was slaming people who work for a different service I understand you want to defend a service you work for but no one from the other service was on here slamming workers and no one from medforce said you wasn’t doing your job but im sure u could agree that if there is a closer truck to respond to a 911 it doesn’t matter what service it is just get the closest one there its whats best for the patent for example today some one in shawnee town was down and cpr was in progress a truck was sent from harrisburg when the call could have been rolled to a truck that was closer medforce had trucks in eldorado and could have been to the scene apx 6 min sooner its situations like that the need to be corrected minutes count when someone heart has stopped
well the video had nothing to do with saline county calls this was taken in gallatin county with gallatin county ambulance responding on a gallatin county call