DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — DeKalb County is weighing whether to spend more than $70 million to try to improve emergency response times.
Channel 2 Action News has reported for years on how the county has lagged behind recommended standards, where seconds could be the difference between life and death.
A recent study found the system was overwhelmed. But proponents of the county’s plan believe spending millions may change things and to make sure that when 911 calls come in, an ambulance gets going.
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911 caller: “We had a member who dumped hot grease on him.”
Scars still mark Rufus Benford Jr. from that day when a vat of 375-degree oil went down his arm, face and back while he was at a church fish fry.
For more than half an hour, Benford Jr. sat and waited as congregants called and called.
911 caller: “We have called like five, six times, and nobody is still here, or nobody came.”
The ambulance never arrived. Instead, a fellow church member drove Benford to Grady Memorial Hospital.
"If God wasn’t with me, I wouldn’t be here today," Benford Jr. told Channel 2’s Michael Dounda.
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Now, DeKalb County says the wrong classification of the call contributed to the problem.
But last year, a study found that the county’s ambulance contractor had a response time nearly four times the industry-recommended standard.
“Response times do matter when there’s a critical need for the ambulance to be there," DeKalb County Fire Chief Darnell Fullum said at a recent meeting.
The report found resources were a major factor: 80% of the time every ambulance was in use, allowing calls to stack up and the system to fall behind.
“A well-running and efficient system, but you can only do that if you have enough units in the system," Fullum said.
DeKalb County is looking to spend $77 million over five years with promises to put more ambulances on the street, with more hour hopefully leading to lower response times.
Benford Jr. supports the idea and prays any investment made by the county pays off and saves lives.
“Because, like I said, life and death. It’s just a matter of a second you’re here, a matter of a second you’ll be gone," he said.
If the contract is approved, it would require the contractor to provide 600 service hours a day. That should mean around 35 ambulances if it includes more positions to prevent lost time from shift changes and an additional substation to better position emergency personnel.
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