Lehigh Acres renews ambulance service agreement with Lee County for one year

Reporter: Nicole Lauren
Published: Updated:
Lehigh Acres Emergency response times. Photo via WINK News

New ambulance service agreement has been signed by Lehigh Acres for one year to see if the department can speed up their response times to emergencies.

On Tuesday, Lehigh will renew their ambulance service agreement with the fire district, but under the strict guideline that response times need to be less than nine minutes.

That is two to three minutes faster than the response times they currently post, and Lee County Commissioners, as well as the fire department, both agree that those few minutes are the difference in life and death in some cases.

“We look at the response times that people who provide ambulance service in Lee County have and we want them to get there in under 8 minutes and 59 seconds, especially with the highest priority calls and these folks haven’t been able to make that time,” said Brian Hamman, Lee County Commissioner.

Commissioners did say the department did express to them the need for another fire station because the 142 square miles they cover with only five stations, often isn’t enough.

As of now, the county is only renewing the agreement with Lehigh for one year, instead of two, to see if they can make the faster response time improvements.

 

 

 

 

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