July 8, 1997

Ambulance service will be changed

       Within a month, the White River Township Fire Department will drop Rural/Metro ambulance service as the company providing paramedic treatment and transportation to area residents.  Instead, residents served by the Fire Department will receive the exclusive services of EMAS, an Indianapolis-based, family owned emergency ambulance and paramedic service provider.  Rural/Metro, formerly Myers Ambulance Service, served the township’s residents more than 30 years.  But a little more than a year ago, Carole Myers sold the family owned business to Rural/Metro, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company valued at $250 million.  Fire Chief Mike Dutton moved for the change because EMAS will dedicate a paramedic team to his department. “We have an opportunity from EMAS to provide us a paramedic dedicated to citizens of White River Township, period,” Dutton said.  “It won’t be pulled for non-emergency transports in other areas in Indianapolis or Johnson County.”  EMAS will assign a paramedic ambulance to White River Township Fire Department’s Station 1, 1086 S. Runyon Road, around the clock.  “We are very similar to what Myers used to be — nearly identical to what the Myers family started more than 30 years ago,” said Wayne Fletcher, EMAS operations director. 

         EMAS said the township averages about 60 emergency calls per month.  “It really is not going to be a profitable venture for us,” Fletcher said.  “But it will be an opportunity for us to expand our business and the profit eventually will come our way.”  Rural/Metro and EMAS also may both be scrambling for other fire department service contracts.  “Our Intent is to branch out throughout Johnson County,” Fletcher said. “This didn’t happen overnight.  It is something we have looked at over the past eight or nine months, and we decided it would be beneficial to White River residents and Johnson County.”  Fletcher said White River’s firefighters will train EMAS employees and familiarize them with the area.  “We are guaranteeing the Fire Department that our unit at their fire station will be controlled by White River Township Fire Department and their staff,” Fletcher said. “We will maintain, equip them, but they will be solely controlled by the Fire Department. We are willing to repaint our units to say White River Township Fire Department.” 

         Fletcher said costs for transportation provided by his company are the lowest In the Indianapolis area.  “I think we are quite a bit less expensive, and residents will soon be calling us for private calls,” he said.  Jim White, Rural/Metro’s central Indiana area manager, said his company intends to keep two response units In Johnson County at all times.  “If their run load (EMAS) gets to be too much, we will act as their backup and provide the same dependable service to Johnson County that we have for more than 30 years,” White said.  While disappointed with Dutton’s decision, White said the switch from his company to EMAS will not cause any Rurai/Metro organizational changes.  White said Dutton’s request for a full-time ambulance and paramedic units was more than Rural/Metro was willing to do.  “We could not do what they asked us to do,” he said. “The transportations from the township are less than two per day and working without a subsidy, a private company, it would not have been good business. It was not feasible, based on the demand for that particular portion of the county, alone.”  Dutton said he wanted guarantees for township residents that paramedic assistance would be at their homes within four minutes.  “We need to be guaranteed that we can get there quick enough to have a chance to save lives,” Dutton said.  (Reprinted with permission from the Daily Journal)

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