Lakeland is new home of medical transport service that wants backup-emergency role

By T.S. Carter

LAKELAND, Lanier County, Georghia – Lakeland has landed a non-emergency medical transport service that will take patients from facility to facility throughout Georgia, as well as help county sheriffs with transport of psychologically distressed patients.

 

But that is just for starters.

 

Bartow, Florida-based STAT Ambulance Company plans to eventually expand its service into providing backup emergency medical transport in Lanier, Berrien and Atkinson counties, according to CEO Greg Myers, an Air Force veteran and former fire chief whose company runs 18 ambulances in Polk County, Florida, a Central Florida county between Orlando and Tampa.

 

STAT would limit its emergency medical transport vehicles to occasions in which a locality’s primary medical emergency vehicles are busy on other calls, he said.

 

For instance, Myers said, “If Lanier County is out on a run, and someone in Lakeland is having a heart attack, we will provide emergency transport,” he said, and emphasized that a county’s designated service “will always come first.”

 

A county’s Emergency Management Service (EMS) would have to call us, Myers noted.

 

The ambulances would also be stationed at public events such as high school football games, providing such services free of charge, he added.

 

STAT Ambulance is awaiting state certification for emergency medical transport. Myers said the certification could come in weeks or maybe months.

 

Lanier and Atkinson counties each have one primary emergency medical transport vehicle, while Berrien has three.

 

He said he expects the company will brief the counties on its offerings as a “professional courtesy.”

 

But, Myers added, “I don’t need their permission to be in a county.”

 

STAT chose Lakeland for its central location and proximity to Berrien and Atkinson counties. The company initially settled on Alapaha in Berrien County, but decided Lakeland offered more location advantages.

 

Myers said a hunting trip to Georgia last year convinced him of the need for the kinds of services STAT can offer. He saw that most of the rural South Georgia counties only had one or two ambulances. And in addition to emergency calls, these vehicles were being used for routine transport of non-emergency patients between facilities, leaving the localities without ready emergency medical transport services.

 

This sort of diversion is occurring across Georgia, according to Myers. STAT can help to ease the problem, he said.

 

Lee Hutto, a Lakeland volunteer firefighter, will supervise the operation in Lakeland, where STAT has set up shop in the former Lanier County News office at 20 Thigpen Avenue.Hutto said in a phone interview that Lanier County has a “huge” need for an additional EMS service.

 

On the non-emergency transport side, STAT will contract with facilities such as Greenleaf Behavior Health Services in Valdosta and other facilities and sheriff departments to provide the services from near the Tennessee line down to near the Florida line.

 

Relieving primary medical transport companies from doing routine transfer between facilities, which Hutto said can take from 10 to 13 hours, will be a big benefit to the companies, he said.

 

STAT’s services will also free up county deputies from getting diverted to transport patients with psychological distress, known in Georgia law enforcement as 10-13 patients.

 

The service will start with seven employees certified in Advanced Lifesaving Services (ALS) and in time likely it will expand to 15 ALS certified workers, according to Hutto.

 

STAT’s Lakeland operation will start with three SUVs for non-emergency medical transport and two ambulances, he said. Five ambulances could be stationed in Lakeland once the company begins its emergency medical transport services, Hutto added.

 

“There is a huge need in South Georgia,” he noted. “And Lakeland happens to be in the center of everywhere.”

 

Myers said reaching remote farms and fields will be possible with the four-wheel drive ambulances that STAT will deploy once it is certified to provide emergency medical transport.

 

“We can get out in the fields for, say, someone caught in a combine or other farm accident,” he said.

 

STAT’s ambulances will also traverse the rural clay roads that are difficult to get through in wet conditions which can cause a vehicle to slip and slide, Myers added.

 

STAT Ambulance Company is preparing to base its statewide services in Lakeland at 20 Thigpen Avenue.