The pandemic has shown how critical emergency medical services are across the country.
But in South Carolina and most other states, EMS is not classified as an “essential service,” as law enforcement and fire services are.
While those services have been part of the US in some fashion since colonial times, EMS is much younger, established in many areas of the country in the 1970s, according to South Carolina EMS Association Advocacy and Legislative Chair Steven McDade.
But since then, McDade said EMS has become a necessity in every community. “You can look at it from just an everyday thing, where you can call for a heart attack or a stroke or a car wreck, or look at the impact that EMS has had during this pandemic. They, really, we’ve been the ones, frontline, combatting that,” he said.