LEE COUNTY, Fla. - A Lee County ordinance wants ambulances to respond to 90 percent of their calls in eight minutes and 59 seconds. You may be surprised who might be holding them back.

Before their shift begins, paramedics on Medic One prepare for someone's darkest day. As the sun rises over South Trail Fire Station #1, the first call comes in.

The county wants these paramedics at the scene in under 8 minutes 59 seconds 90 percent of the time. After all, in this job, seconds count.

In Lee County, getting anywhere is a challenge, especially during season.

"We have a large geographical region we have 1020 square miles in lee county so we can't get to every point in the county in 8:59 or less," said EMS Director, Kim Dickerson.

In 2007 Lee County EMS sat at about 81percent.

Thanks to some changes, they were able to improve dramatically.

In September 2008, 88.72 percent of their calls came in under 8:59.

They came closest in August with 89.43 percent.

Sometimes the difference for paramedics is as simple as how you respond to emergency vehicles when you are driving.

The ambulance is on it's way to help a child with a head injury, but cars don't move when the ambulance approaches.

On another call, taking a heart attack patient to the hospital, a Prius pulls right in front of the ambulance.

"We do have individuals who just for whatever reason don't want to move out of the ambulances way. They either don't know where to go or they're just being stubborn and they want to stay in front of the ambulance," said Dickerson.

There's another challenge -- off road. Dispatchers receive thousands of calls, but they're receiving more and more that are not medical emergencies. In fact, more than 14 percent of all of their calls are *not* medical emergencies.

Dickerson explained, "It might be a broken finger. It might be a hurt foot."

Most of those non-medical emergency calls come from two places; Cape Coral and downtown Fort Myers.

Of the 7,400 non-emergency calls EMS received this year; 1472 of those came from Fort Myers, 1484 came from Cape Coral. That means just those two areas accounted for 40 percent of their non-emergency calls. This causes problems for dispatchers.

"Especially if we're in the middle of season and we're extremely busy trying to balance in that cut finger, it may cause us to put a paramedic resource on the call when may not necessarily need a paramedic," said Dickerson.

That could keep very serious emergencies from getting the help they need.

They still need your help to make sure they're ready to help you.

The county recently changed the ordinance to allow them to respond to those calls in more than 9 minutes.