Study: County-Run EMS Squad Would Provide ‘Undeniable’ Benefit to Barrier Island

Equipment from the now-defunct Dover-Brick Beach EMS squad. (Photo: Dover-Brick Beach EMS)

A study by a consulting firm hired by Ocean County to study whether a county-run emergency medical squad found that such a service would provide an “undeniable” benefit to areas where ambulance response times are the longest, including portions of the northern barrier island.

Under a notional EMT program, municipalities would partner with the county squad to provide a new layer of coverage in target areas, as well as an additional source of mutual aid. The 132-page document also detailed numerous options for the implementation of such a partnership by way of logistics, including billing, equipment and basing issues.

Ocean County Commissioner Gary Quinn, who has spearheaded the effort to provide relief to the county’s mix of volunteer and professional squads, said a county-run service would not be designed to replace those that are already established, but augment them in two key areas: the two barrier islands (the northern island and Long Beach Island), and certain portions of the southern Ocean County.

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Ocean County “is not interested in taking over the emergency medical services for all 33 municipalities,” he said, rather it would be “more of a support agencies to help those areas that need it.”

“Far too often, our emergency dispatchers are spending time trying to find mutual aid rigs to respond to calls,” Quinn said, adding the fact that volunteer squads have seen recruiting drop since the Covid-19 pandemic, while towns with paid squads face their own budgetary and recruiting issues.

According to a copy of the study obtained by Shorebeat, the year-one cost to run a county-led squadron would be $1,116,500 operationally, with an initial capital investment of $9,494,500 to cover the cost of 15 ambulances, eight command vehicles, plus radios and medical equipment. EMTs would likely be paid between $51,000 and $80,000, with eight supervisory employees being required at varying salaries.

The call to add more EMTs in portions of the county – especially the northern barrier island – gained steam over the past two years, largely after Ortley Beach residents began voicing concerns over lengthy wait times for ambulances to arrive during emergencies. Multiple volunteer squads, including Ortley Beach’s own squad as well as Dover-Brick in Normandy Beach, have shut down over the last decade, while municipal squadrons and Tri-Boro First Aid have added professional EMTs to their roster. Lavallette remains the only all-volunteer squad on the island, and is often called to other towns as mutual aid when there are no other rigs available to respond.

Nationally, the average EMS response time is about 8 minutes, with 8:59 being the generally-accepted maximum wait period under a best practices consensus.

“Some of our residents have waited an hour,” Quinn said. “I know four families that have lost loved ones because they had to wait that long.”

Quinn’s comments have been echoed by Ortley Beach residents at meetings, who have described lengthy waiting times during the summer months. In response, Mayor Dan Rodrick ran for office on a platform of adding more EMTs, but faced pushback by funding the cost of adding them by reducing the number of the most highly-paid police supervisory positions in town.

“I am confident our residents would want this service,” Quinn said. “If we can save one life, it’s worth the money. Every elected official in this county should realize this is a crisis.”

To kickstart a healthy program, Quinn said the county would be working with the Ocean County Vocational Technical Schools to provide courses in EMS so when high school students graduate from the district, they will do so with the skills to work in emergency medical services. EMS courses continue to be taught at the Ocean County Training Center in Waretown.

“Ocean County is one of the largest counties in the state when it comes to land mass,” Quinn said. “Just as we have an obligation to make certain our infrastructure is well maintained and our other services are provided, this too is our obligation.”

The study commissioned by the county calls for 40 full-time EMTs and 20 per diem EMTs in year one, ramping up to a full roster of 60 full-time EMTs and 40 per diem employees by year five. The program would begin with 15 ambulances and grow to 23 over the same time period. The increase in rigs to dispatch would likely require some new negotiations with the Teamsters union that represents 911 dispatchers, potentially to provide new shift options in order to make the service more responsive. More dispatchers should be added in order to alleviate the workload currently borne by staff, which would also allow for a more personal and guided experience when someone calls – often under a great deal of stress and facing a life-or-death scenario – for an ambulance.

“The county 911 communications center should be viewed as a customer service-based agency, where compassionate patient care call-taking is the experience, the caller receives,” the report stated. “Behind the scenes, robust state-of-the-art technology captures important analytical data and yields a real-time reporting system, saving time and lives.”

The report noted that, in certain circumstances, critical data was not available to staff. Both manpower as well as compensation should be addressed alongside the establishment of an expanded squad, it was suggested. As for equipment, ambulances should be fitted with automatic vehicle locators that would allow technology to make calculations and rapidly determine which crews should respond to which calls.

Basing could be centered at the current county training facility in Waretown, with other options for substations potentially utilizing existing buildings. Regardless of which options would be favored for implementation, the study found that such a program is needed in Ocean County.

“After reviewing all the data, interviewing, and meeting with stakeholders, it is undeniable that a county-wide EMS gap service would benefit Ocean County residents and visitors,” the report concluded. “There is a clear need for a sustainable, reliable, strategically deployed pre-hospital ambulance service.”

Quinn, who is stepping down from the board when his term ends at the end of 2024, said that while he will not be a Commissioner on the Board in the new year, the new commissioners-elect will be tasked with looking at solutions for the growing EMS concerns, especially given the county’s status of having the largest senior citizen and veterans’ populations in the state.

“And while we always speak about how proud we are of this distinction, because of the current EMS situation we don’t have the ability to take care of them,” he said. “We have a population of more than 650,000 which more than doubles during the summer months. We have to start looking at this situation and we have to start addressing it now.”