Yellowstone County Commissioners say they’re baffled by a problem with rural ambulance services that was brought to their attention earlier this week.
America First Response has received two calls from 911 dispatch since it started providing ambulance services more than two months ago.
“We had a tremendous shortfall, nobody could take a call then America First Response comes on and all of a sudden everybody’s taking calls,” Commissioner Mark Morse said. “What it looks like is everybody’s trying to squeeze them out.”
The company is the second private provider licensed to respond to 911 calls in Yellowstone County. For years, American Medical Response has been the only ambulance service available for people who live in rural areas that do not have any other options for emergency transport.
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Outside of Billings, the county has three agencies that respond to 911 calls and provide emergency medical transport. Laurel Ambulance, the Lockwood Rural Fire District and Worden Ambulance, which covers the Worden and Huntley areas. The agencies are staffed mostly by volunteers and take calls outside of their respective areas when they can, but they aren’t required to help.
Shepherd, Custer, Broadview, Fuego, Blue Creek, Haley Bench, Molt and the Crow Indian Reservation rely solely on private ambulances because their local fire districts do not provide for those services.
Commissioner John Ostlund said rural transport has long been lacking so he can’t see why the new provider isn’t being used more often.
“I’m a little bit baffled,” he said. “We’ve been talking about this problem for literally 25 years now.”
So far in 2023, there were 113 times in which 911 callers waited more than 10 minutes before a response was initiated, according to data provided to the commissioners by Derek Yeager, manager of emergency communications for the county.
On 54 occasions, an agency from outside the area has had to take the call because the local jurisdiction did not respond.
There were 23 patients who were taken to emergency rooms by bystanders due to a delayed response and nine rode to the hospital with law enforcement.
Seven were picked up by ambulances from outside the county or were taken by helicopter because local first responders couldn’t get to them.
Long wait times also caused 19 callers to cancel their request for help entirely and 18 asked for a specific ambulance service that was different from the one responsible for their area.
“That trend got better after America First Response was put into the queue as an ambulance that could be paged,” Yellowstone County Disaster and Emergency Services Director KC Williams told the commissioners. “But I don’t have the data or anything that says why that happened.”
American Medical Response has refused two calls since America First Response started its ambulance service. And those were the only two given to the new provider.
John Briggs, the company’s chief operations officer, said he can’t afford to continue the ambulance service much longer if calls don’t start coming in soon. He’s already had to cut staff due to the financial hardship.
“But we’re still here. We’re still ready to help,” he said. “I’d love to see us all come together to better serve the citizens of Yellowstone County.”
Ostlund suggested coming up with a rotation system for 911 dispatch that would fairly include all providers. The commission is now putting together a group to help work out the problems.
“This is a personal deal for me,” Ostlund said. “My mother laid on the ground at 86 years old with a broken hip because she couldn’t get rural transport.”