When someone calls North Central EMS & Rescue Squad to ask for a ride to a health care facility, the answer is no.
That’s been the answer for all calls since May, said Christopher Siebeneich, chief of the private ambulance company, 3204 Washington Ave.
“Other than planned events, I don’t have anybody,” Siebeneich said. “We’re going to have to turn (the call) down. I don’t have the staff interested in filling the vacancies.”
Siebeneich started his first full-time job as an emergency medical technician in 2008. At that time, “everybody and their brother wanted to be an EMT,” he said, referring to emergency medical technicians.
And now? The county and state have been experiencing EMT shortages for the past decade.