New EMS station aims to bring faster response to Barren County
HAYWOOD, Ky. (WNKY) — Barren-Metcalfe EMS held a ribbon-cutting Thursday for its new station in Haywood. The location is expected to help ambulances reach emergencies faster, cutting response times for people living in Haywood and other parts of southern Barren County.
Crews began responding to emergency calls from the new station at 31 Matthews Mill Road on Nov. 8.
Cutting ambulance response times
The new station came after response-time studies revealed lengthy waits for ambulances in parts of southern Barren County.
“In looking at a 25 to 30 minute response time to the Austin Tracy and the [Barren River] lake area, we’re going to shave off that 12 to 15 minutes,” said Joe Middleton, executive director of Barren-Metcalfe EMS.
The improvement could be even more noticeable in Haywood, where ambulance response times that previously averaged around 12 minutes could now drop to just a few minutes.
Bringing emergency services closer to home
For Middleton, who has spent 32 years with the organization, the station is about more than getting ambulances to emergencies faster. It’s part of a plan to move emergency resources closer to the communities that need them.
“What I see with this is actually building a model, a true community based model, to where we start moving things out of the center of Glasgow, and we move stuff out into the community areas so that the community areas provide better coverage,” Middleton said.
The facility includes living quarters for crews and an oversized ambulance garage.
Its location also allows crews to help cover Glasgow, where more than half of Barren-Metcalfe EMS’s emergency calls originate.
More ambulance coverage overnight
The opening has also brought a change in staffing.
“We took a 12 hour truck and we converted it to a 24 hour truck. So we have increased our nighttime coverage across Barren and Metcalfe counties,” Middleton explained.
An ambulance will now be stationed in Haywood around the clock, rather than operating on a 12-hour schedule.
If the Haywood crew is already responding to another emergency, a different ambulance will be dispatched from elsewhere.
The new station is part of Barren-Metcalfe EMS’s larger effort to spread ambulance coverage throughout the county, putting crews closer to residents when emergencies happen.
