MT. JULIET, Tenn. (WKRN) — Mt. Juliet is looking to shorten ambulance response times as more and more people move to the rapidly growing Wilson County city.
Mt Juliet will soon have its own ambulance division at all three of its fire stations.
Until now, the city relied on Wilson County to provide ambulance service, but chief Luffman told News 2 it’s time to get their own.
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“I’ve been here since day one. I was born and raised here, this is my hometown, I’ve seen a lot of growth and welcomed a lot of growth,” Chief Luffman said.
Chief Luffman added that Mt. Juliet has nearly doubled in population from a decade ago when the fire department was first built.
“Our call volume is increasing at such a rate we are now at 3,000 calls a year,” Luffman said.
According to Luffman, about 85% of those are medical calls. On Monday, the Mt. Juliet Board of Commissioners passed the 2022-2023 budget tasking the fire department to create an ambulance division of its own.
“We’ll have paramedics riding on the fire trucks, paramedics riding on the ambulances,” Luffman said.
He said there will be a 911 response truck at each of the three fire stations.
“During the day we’ll have a convalescent truck that does transfer to long-term facilities to dialysis to doctor appointments and back,” Luffman said.
The city plans to hire an EMS chief, along with 18 paramedics and EMTs.
Luffman said he’s hopeful to have ambulances on the road within a year.
The ambulance division is expected to cost the city around $1.9 million.