VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Whether it's the number of vehicles, staffing, or funding levels, Virginia Beach EMS Chief Jason Stroud said the department is doing more with less.
But speaking to the Virginia Beach City Council Tuesday night, Stroud said having more ambulances would prevent more crews from crisscrossing the city and responding to that growing amount of calls.
"Our ambulance fleet is smaller today than it was 14 years ago. Yet we're responding to more than 20,000 additional calls for service since that time." Stroud said "These challenges are not expected to get better anytime soon in the next one to two years. In fact, there's concerns that they'll get worse given this looming crisis."
At the meeting Tuesday night, Virginia Beach City Council signaled its support by providing funding to the four rescue squads to buy five new ambulances.
The news is a welcome announcement to people 13News Now spoke with, like Chantelle Moten.
"I think they're pretty important because a lot of people, when they need an ambulance, they're really alone at that time so they can't take themselves to the hospital,” Moten said.
Moten hopes the new ambulances could cut down on response times in some of the more rural areas of Virginia Beach. It's an issue she experienced firsthand.
"When I was a toddler, I was choking and my grandfather had to call an ambulance for me, and they couldn't get to me in time, so my grandfather had to provide life-saving techniques to try and save me, and then the ambulance. It took them like an hour and a half to get there," Moten said.
She's not alone. Timothy Ferebee said he recently waited for 30 minutes for an ambulance with his mother after a fall at Mt. Trashmore.
"We were walking in Mount Trashmore and a couple of dogs tangled up my mother and she fell, hit her head and it was bleeding bad," Ferebee said. "We found out that the ambulance was sent from Sentara Princess Anne Hospital and considering Mt. Trashmore is right down the street from Lee Memorial and Bayside, we thought it would be no time for them to get there."
Stroud said the new ambulances could be operational as soon as next summer. Virginia Beach EMS Leaders also plan to speak with the city council later this month about a proposal to implement “compassionate billing," a way they say to bring much-needed funding to the department.