![]() When it became clear that the serious concerns of our first responders had fallen on deaf ears in Deland, in February, the intrepid WFTV reporter Mike Springer combed through reams of data and independently confirmed that the response times for Volusia County emergency services have been slowly increasing year-over-year. “It has now become normal to be at a patient’s side for 15, 30 and even 40 minutes or more, waiting for an ambulance to arrive,” the letter said. Two years ago, the Volusia County Professional Firefighters Association, a public employee union representing fire and emergency medical personnel, sent a letter to former County Manager Jim Dinneen and the Volusia County Council warning that staffing shortages were limiting their ability to provide ambulance transport service for the nearly 80,000 calls-for-service received each year. In my view, it’s just a small part of why former County Manager Jim Dinneen fled for the hills when the walls he built began closing in – and his toadies on the dais of power didn’t even bother to hire an “outside expert” to make a cheap assessment, provide political insulation and blow smoke up our collective ass like they did for the Medical Examiner’s debacle.īy any metric, there are serious internal issues at EVAC that are putting lives at risk.ĭon’t take my word for it – take a minute to speak to your local fire chief – or any firefighter or paramedic in your community – and ask them for their professional opinion on the issue. Regular readers of these screeds know that I like to pepper the dire issues of the day with a liberal dose of humor and satire, but I’m dead serious when it comes to first-response capabilities and the state of our emergency medical service in Volusia County.īy any measure, Volusia County’s ambulance service – EVAC – is suffering from longstanding staffing and operational issues that continue to place your family and mine in danger. Invariably – things are worse than we could possibly know. ![]() My father had a favorite axiom that, “Rarely are things as good or as bad as we think they are,” and I’ve found that sage advise holds true in most situations.Įxcept when it comes to Volusia County governance.
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