Lake County ambulance staffing levels are risking public’s safety, union says

Ambulance staffing is risk to public: Union

A labor union for firefighters in Lake County claims staffing for ambulances has hit a critical low, putting residents’ safety at risk. The Lake County Firefighters Union says this problem has been a few years in the making.

LAKE COUNTY, Fla. - A labor union for firefighters in Lake County claims staffing for ambulances has hit a critical low, putting residents’ safety at risk. The Lake County Firefighters Union says this problem has been a few years in the making.

Jason Graham, the union president, maintained that there used to be 25 trucks staffed at any point in time. Now, on a good day, he said there are 20.

"It was looking like the number was going to be around 15 on Halloween," said Graham.

That would have meant fifteen ambulances or 400,000 people across over 1,100 square miles. That’s what led him to start posting about the issue on Facebook. Graham said the county was able to avoid that scenario by instead asking people to work 60-hour shifts. However, he doesn’t feel that’s a sustainable solution.

"Those ambulances that are at work are actually going to be running more calls, which means there's not as much downtime. You're probably not going to be able to get to sleep. You might not be able to grab a meal. So towards the end of that shift, you're running on fumes, and you're probably not providing the best level of care that you could provide."

FOX 35 asked the county about all this. Lake County Public Information Officer Sarah Lux said the County is the only government-based ambulatory service in the area, so it uses municipal partnerships to fill any gaps.

The county said the response time for its emergency vehicles is eight minutes and 51 seconds. That’s nine seconds under the national standard. In a statement, the county representative said misinformation from the Union has "made our community worry they are unsafe when the opposite is true."

"My intention is not to stoke fear in the community," Graham responded after being read the statement. "My intention is to raise awareness of the crisis we’re in."

The county said that right now, there are 19 openings for people certified to be both paramedics and firefighters and 21 openings for non-firefighter EMTs. They just hired 16 of those single-certification positions. Graham believes all those openings came about because poor working conditions pushed people out, and not enough people wanted to fill those roles.

"Most of the people that will leave are actually going to other fire departments," said Graham. "So it's not an issue of I don't want to be in the fire service anymore. It's I don't want to work for Lake County anymore."

The union said it has a way to fix this problem. It said raising pay, going back to 24-hour shifts instead of 12, hiring more people, and getting people on-boarded faster would be the answer to all of this.

The union said it reached out to the county and the commission with all of this but hasn’t heard back.