Sept. 19 -- When a person called 9-1-1 on Aug. 8 for help with a stroke victim, it took an EVAC ambulance 58 minutes to get the person from their Ormond Beach residence to a hospital.
Two days earlier, a caller from DeBary dealing with heart problems waited 32 minutes for an ambulance to arrive, records show.
Volusia County Councilwoman Heather Post cited these examples Tuesday as occasions when the county's emergency system failed residents. But those situations are outliers, don't tell the whole story, and shouldn't raise concerns about the overall effectiveness of the operation, said the county's EMS medical director, Peter Springer.
In the wake of mounting criticism about the county's EMS system — including a push by Port Orange to buy its own ambulance — Springer told the council that he's working to address challenges that put a strain on the system, including long wait times at hospital emergency rooms. In particular, only 10 to 15 percent of patients who call 9-1-1 are in need of an immediate transfer to a hospital. The rest of the 90,000 calls a year only serve to tie up a limited number of ambulances and paramedics.
"We could always be more efficient," said Springer, who's worked in the county for 20 years. "I've watched the system grow and change in a positive direction ...(but) there's always room for improvements."
County officials say the average response time for emergency calls is 7½ minutes. That's well within industry standards, according to a representative with the Florida EMS Association.
But when Post attempted to call attention to a number of times within a six-day span that the county didn't respond within 20 minutes, she was accused by her peers of trying to cast a false light over the situation. In recent weeks, Post has made assertions in public meetings and radio talk shows that the county's problem is so critical that ambulances sometimes aren't available — a claim Springer said isn't true.
"This is not a blame game in anyway," Post said. "This is about looking at where we are and resolving it."
Springer said it's unfair to say that the patients on Aug. 6 or Aug. 8 didn't receive help. First responders, such as firefighters, were at the scene to administer CPR and assistance before ambulances arrived, he said, adding that everyone was OK in the end.
"My question would be: Do know if there were any bad outcomes from that?" he asked Post. "If there's a delay in response, it doesn't necessarily mean there was an adverse outcome."
"Is that seriously your response?" Post asked the doctor. "I am horrified by what you said."
At that point, Councilwomen Billie Wheeler and Deb Denys, who was filling in as chair in Ed Kelley's absence, told Post she was "out of order" and accused her of playing a "blame game."
Councilwoman Joyce Cusack cut Post off from continuing to cite examples of times ambulances were late arriving to a call.
"How many do we have to go through to get the picture?" Cusack asked.
The council allocated additional funding this year for two ambulances and eight additional EMS employees. The ambulances, which won't have life support technology, will be devoted to the many non-emergency calls county dispatchers receive. That should help the county better respond when calls come in for a broken leg, a runny nose or a sore throat.
The county is also exploring other alternatives, Springer said, such as taxi-like service that would take residents to the hospital.
"It's so important for us to better educate the public" so that people know the appropriate time to call 9-1-1, Springer said. "9-1-1 is for true emergencies and for true issues."
Tom Soard, a director with the Florida EMS Association, said agencies should strive to keep the average overall response time for a quarter or a year under 10 minutes, although it's not uncommon for it take longer for ambulances to get to rural areas.
When told of several phone calls last month where response times exceeded the half-hour mark, Soard said, "That is a long time." He had a different reaction when told of the county's average response time for an 11-month period starting Oct. 1, 2017: 7 minutes and 31 seconds.
"By what they are saying, they are responding and arriving quickly. This is good," Soard said, adding that it's possible to have some unavoidable delays occasionally. "It can happen due to human error, traffic delays, train delays, bridge delays and other situations."
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