Jackson Commissioners Approve Ambulance Placement At DB Fire Hall During Weekdays

The Jackson County Commission approved placing an ambulance at the Dodson Branch fire hall on the weekdays between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.

EMA/EMS Director Keith Bean said that the new placement would cut response time to the school down to four minutes.

“We’ve had three incidents since school started,” “And it’s an average of 21 to 22 minutes to get out there. It’s not going to cost the county any more money really. A little fuel maybe, but like I said in the meeting, we did it back in the pandemic to separate the crews”

Bean said that in the 10 months this placement occurred during the pandemic, it cut down on response time by more than two and a half minutes in the area as a whole.

Three commissioners voted against the new placement, including Shelby Fox, Joey Denson, and Gary Garrison. Garrison said that after polling people in his neighborhood, most voted the move unfair. He said that if it’s moved for Dodson Branch, why not everyone.

Commissioner Josh Locke said that the new placement would grant Dodson Branch Elementary the same coverage as the other schools in the district, which have an average response time of three to six minutes. He said that this could prevent a bad situation down the road.

“In my opinion, I mean the way it talks about in this (report) as far as the stuff going on with the kids at school with allergies and all that,” Locke said. “If we don’t look at this and don’t vote something on it, and tomorrow or next month something happens to the kid after and they die and it’s proven that it’s been because it’s 30 minutes out for an ambulance tog et to them, (…) we’re looking at a lawsuit.”