LOUDON — Loudon County Mayor Estelle Herron called for a truce
between competing ambulance services Priority Ambulance and
Rural Metro at a special called meeting of county commission
Thursday morning.
“I have been getting complaints about both ambulance services
swerving at each other on the road and flipping each other off,”
she said.
Herron told the commission and a group of county emergency
responders she’s concerned the rivalry between the two competing
ambulance services might put county residents at risk.
“I would hate to think that there was one person in here that
wouldn’t put the citizens first,” she said.
Rural Metro has a contract with the county to provide ambulance
services. Earlier this year Priority Ambulance received a
contract to provide services to the city of Loudon and Lenoir
City. Rural Metro has filed a suit against Lenoir City alleging
breach of contract.
The key issue is how to handle mutual aid calls, especially on
the highest priority calls where a patient’s life is in imminent
danger, according to county 911 director Jennifer Estes.
“If it’s a priority one, a life-threatening situation, the
dispatcher needs to be able to make the call based on which
service is closer,” she said.
Responders and dispatchers have been unsure how to handle such calls because each service has contractually defined jurisdictions, Estes said. “It needs to be agreed upon before something happens,” she said.
County attorney Bob Bowman asked representatives of both
companies if they thought they could work out an acceptable
mutual aid agreement.
Rural Metro chief Jerry Harnish told the commission his service
had no problem working out an agreement where the closest
available ambulance was dispatched to high priority calls but he
said wanted to make sure the dispatchers were not arbitrarily
choosing which service to call.
“If it’s inability to respond, that’s one thing, but if it’s
choosing one over the other, that’s a different thing,” he said.
Dennis Rowe, director of operations for Priority in Loudon and
Knox counties, said that if called upon his service would
respond with every resource, regardless of the location in the
county.
Commissioner David Meers asked Harnish about the number of ambulance units assigned to the county and whether it was true that there have been delays in response to life-threatening situations because of the territorial dispute. “That’s in the rumor mill. I haven’t heard anything like that,” Harnish responded.
Herron asked for both companies to sit down together within the
next three weeks to work out an arrangement to provide mutual
aid for high-priority calls. Estes asked if an interim agreement
could be worked out during the meeting.
Rowe and Harnish agreed to meet next week at the Loudon E-911
building to discuss mutual aid.
County Sheriff Tim Guider asked that from now on, if two
ambulance services arrived at the scene at the same time, both
use professionalism.
Asked about the incidents of drivers swerving at each other on
the road, Priority’s Rowe said he has heard about such
incidents, but considered the information to be “hearsay.”
Harnish said he has not heard about any instances of
unprofessional conduct by his drivers. It could be that another
driver misinterpreted the actions of another driver, he said.
Moreover, he said it would not be hard to investigate such
claims because the ambulances have cameras recording whenever
the vehicle is moving.