How often are ambulances needed?

In the first three months of 2018, predominantly full-time ambulance crews in Marion and Hillsboro handled nearly three-fourths of all county ambulance calls.

Of the 328 times in which radio dispatches for ambulances were recorded, Hillsboro crews handled 38.1 percent of the calls, and Marion crews handled 35.7 percent.

Predominantly pay-per-call crews in Peabody handled 18.0 percent of the calls, while similar crews in Tampa handled 5.8 percent and in Florence handled 2.4 percent.

Nearly three out of every 10 ambulance calls resulted in no patient being transported to a hospital, and 41.6 percent for the patients who were transported were merely transferred from one health care facility to another.

Hillsboro and Marion ambulances averaged transporting one patient per day from a non-medical location where they had been injured or became ill.

Peabody averaged transporting one such patient every 2.3 days. Tampa averaged one every 8.2 days, and Florence averaged every 18 days.

Hillsboro, Marion, and sometimes Peabody ambulances transported more patients from the Goessel area than Florence ambulance transported from the Florence and Burns area.

If the first quarter of the year is indicative of which might be expected throughout the year, the county would see a total of 1,312 ambulance calls annually, including stand-by and canceled calls.