The Georgetown County Fire and EMS Department is having to make the difficult decision to down an ambulance periodically.
Assistant Fire Chief Tony Hucks says it’s due to staffing issues that have been ongoing for a while.
“Some days with people working over due to lack of staffing, sometimes we have to go down a truck,” said Hucks. “After people work so many hours. Safely, we can’t work them with so many hours.”
In addition to overtime, the department has had to reallocate resources among the eight firehouses in the county. Currently, they are in need of more paramedics, who have a higher level of training, to staff the ambulances. “Unfortunately being that we have more EMTs than paramedics, that results in putting BLS units on the streets to cover,” Hucks said.
There is a fresh batch of EMTs and paramedics currently training, but it will be a while before they hit the road.