MAUMEE, Ohio — Terri Harrison has lived in the Maumee neighborhood across from St. Luke's Hospital for 45 years. Her family has connections to the area going back decades.
"My father actually used to farm the ground here where the hospital is now," Harrison said.
In that time, she's watched the nearby medical campus grow and evolve.
"It was so small to start with, and a lot of the other buildings weren't there," Harrison said. "It really changed a lot of things for the people around here because it was a hospital close by."
Harrison has had various relatives who were born at and worked at St. Luke's. Her own mother, who lived an hour away in Bryan, had open heart surgery at the hospital in 2009.
But with the news St. Luke's is closing on May 8, a week earlier than the previously announced May 15 date, Harrison is worried about the people in outlying counties who need medical care like her mother did.
"If they have an emergency and they have to go farther, I think it's going to be scary for them," Harrison said.
With the hospital closing, emergency services have one fewer place to take patients. In Providence Township near the western border of Lucas County, the fire department could take emergency patients to St. Luke's in less than 15 minutes.
Now, department officials say ambulances will have to take them more than 30 minutes to University Toledo Medical Center or Toledo Hospital.
"It creates a gap where it may take a little bit longer for individuals to get an ambulance," fire Captain Chad Eickholt said.
Eickholt said the department only has two ambulances, and the longer a vehicle is out of town, the more the service is stretched thin. The extended drive times could put people at a greater risk.
Some like Maumee's Jeff DeArmond hope Mercy Health, who agreed to buy the hospital from McLaren, will put the campus to good use sooner than later.
"Nobody wants to see a big empty building," DeArmond said. "Hopefully they come up with a plan where they convert it into something. Whether that's going to be a hospital or something else, we'll have to wait and see."