When Seconds Count: West Richland to Vote on Ambulance Levy

Share

By Chelsea Kopta

Summary

When you have a medical emergency five minutes could save your life. But West Richland doesn't have its own ambulance service and has to call someone else to come get you. Now West Richland firefighters are trying to cut the weight times with a levy.

Story Published: Feb 18, 2010 at 8:09 PM PST

WEST RICHLAND, WA -- A fire truck and an ambulance seem like standard rigs at a fire station. And for the most part, they are. You'll find them in Prosser, Benton City, Richland, Kennewick - everywhere but West Richland Fire District 4. That's because District 4 is the only station in Benton County that doesn't have its own ambulance service.

"They're like 'why aren't you?' and the simple answer is we're not funded to provided ambulance," Benton Fire District 4 Chief Mike Spring said.

DIstrict 4 can provide basic life support in the first few minutes but without an ambulance, they can't rush you to the hospital. They rely on the Richland Fire Department and District 2 in Benton City for help.

To cut weight times and provide a better quality of life, they're asking West Richland residents to pay to change that. Voters will get to decide on April 27 whether to approve an EMS levy that will fund ambulance transport services.

"If something happens to someone in my family, I want help to be here as fast as possible," West Richland homeowner Chandy Lindberg said.

Problem is, moms like Chandy Lindberg can't count on lightning fast response times. If the goal response time is five minutes, it could take Richland crews 11.8 minutes and Benton City 18.9 minutes to get where her family lives in the Candy Mountain Estates near Kennedy and Dallas Roads. That's nearly four times longer than anywhere in West Richland.

"That is a long, long time," Marlena Burkey said, a West Richland homeowner who lives near Wiley Elementary.

"There's instance after instance of waiting for the service - and again, I want to make sure I'm not saying anything bad about Richland or anything and about Benton City, they're both exceptional services - they're just far away," Spring said.

Depending on which department is dispatched, response times vary. But according to average emergency response times in Benton County 4 fire zones, wait times often double their five-minute goal. Fire Zones are broken down into huge coverage areas but for the sake of understanding relative locations, Action News broke down those times into neighborhoods within those zones. Near Wiley Elementary, you could wait up to 11 minutes. Near Harrington Road, you could wait up to 12 minutes. And in the large fire zone that includes Ruppert Road, it could take an ambulance 15.9 minutes to get to you.

"I lost two brothers, not in this area, and the response time was fast and it was still too long. So 11 minutes is too long," Burkey said, who lives in the neighborhood near Wiley Elementary School. "I feel like we really do need an ambulance service here now," Burkey said.

The levy will cost 50 cents per $1,000 of assessed value, or $75 for the owner of a $150,000 home. That pays for three paramedics, two ambulances and bays to store them in.

To pass, firefighters will need a supermajority, or 60% voter approval. The proposal fell just short two years ago, when voter approval was 54% during the November general election, but that included both a bond and levy. This time, it's just a levy. If it does pass, service would begin next year.


RESOURES:

For all the information about the levy, check out the Benton County Fire District http://www.bcfd4.org/

Map of response times by fire zones: http://yourfirstdue.com/manager/data/1244251801/File/bc4mapv0011.pdf