New ambulance for county to serve Claxton
With an amendment to the budget for next fiscal year, the Anderson County Commission voted to add a new ambulance to serve the Claxton area.
Fifth District Commissioner Robert McKamey made the motion, and First District Commissioner Tracy Wandell seconded. It passed with a contested vote.
The county committed $256,000.
Wandell, who has made adding more ambulance services to the Claxton area he represents a priority, stressed the importance of acting quickly.
“I would argue people are dying today, so we need to react today,” he said. “I prefer to see our people live.”
Nathan Sweet, Anderson County Emergency Medical Services director, said the ambulance will have staff for 12 hours. It will operate seven days per week during the daytime. The change to the budget didn’t involve new equipment or a new building, just four new personnel.
These two paramedics and two emergency medical technicians are all the county needs to operate the additional vehicle. Sweet said an ambulance stationed in Clinton, and another at the east end of Oak Ridge currently provide service for Claxton. He said he wasn’t sure where this new ambulance would park, but that it would be somewhere in Claxton when on duty and back at the main EMS garage when off duty.
“This is a great opportunity to improve our EMS response in Claxton, and to all of Anderson County,” he said. “We will see an improved response capability countywide because of this new ambulance.”
Opioid settlement
McKamey’s amendment included $200,000 from a lawsuit settlement regarding problems the county faces from opioids. The remaining $56,000 will be from federal American Rescue Plan funds.
Seventh District Commissioner Sabra Beauchamp objected to the use of opioid settlement funds for response rather than prevention.
“Our goal should be to try and get people off opioids instead of promoting ‘keep doing them, get Narcan, save your life,’” she said.
Third District Commissioner Shelly Vandagriff said she wanted to study and get community input on ways to use the funds to “keep people from needing to call EMS.”
First District Commissioner Tyler Mayes said other funds were already required to go to those kinds of programs.
And Fourth District Commissioner Tim Isbel said more money from the opioid lawsuit would come later for the county to use. Commissioners Wells, Isbel, Wandell, Shain Vowell, Joshua Anderson, Robert McKamey, Mayes, Jerry White and Anthony Allen voted for the new ambulance. Commissioners Vandagriff, Beauchamp, Phil Yager, Robert Smallridge and Foster voted against it.