TOLEDO, Ohio — Earlier this month, the Lucas County Commissioners approved a proposal that would change, in part, funding for Life Squad services.
An Advance Life Support vehicle, also known as a "Life Squad", is the closest thing to an emergency room on wheels. The Toledo Fire & Rescue Department has six Life Squad vehicles and the one that gets the most calls is out of Station 5 in downtown Toledo.
"I would say probably, on average, at least 10 to 16 runs a day," Station 5 paramedic Myles Copeland said. "Lots of people need help."
The proposal would move ownership of Life Squad services to each municipality. Maumee City Council recently voted against the idea saying the terms of the agreement would be too costly and crews could be tied up with mutual aid runs.
WTOL 11 talked with TFRD Deputy Chief Timothy Clapp who said the Life Squad service transition could offer better care for those in the county.
"Now the rig will show up. It's capable of taking whatever the situation is and transporting them to the hospital. So it's very efficient," Clapp said. "The districts are going to get smaller, so there will be less traveling across two or three districts like a Life Squad would have to do quite often."
According to Clapp, the Toledo-based Life Squads take 85% of the nearly 26,000 runs a year for the county, a service which can mean the difference between life or death.
"We hope to have some kind of system where we still work together cause it's for the best of the citizens, regardless whether we're in city or out of city. It's a county-wide system still is what we're trying to maintain," Clapp said.
According to TFRD, there's $100,000 in equipment inside each Life Squad, $8,000 in medication and overall, it costs over $130,000 to maintain all six rigs.