Northwest EMS has begun providing Basic and Advanced Life Support services to Elizabeth and Clay Townships, an area previously served with the Brickerville Fire Company Ambulance. As part of the merger agreement, Northwest EMS is operating from the Brickerville fire station. Click here for a detailed map of the coverage area.
- EMT Cox,, Fire Chief Strauss and Paramedic Runkel
Since 1969, the Brickerville Fire Company has been providing Basic Life Support (BLS) ambulance services to the townships, but, like many community ambulances, it has become a challenge to find volunteers that are available 24/7. Kurt Gardner, president of the Brickerville Fire Company, along with Chief Jeff Strauss and the other officers of the fire company, welcomed Northwest EMS to their station and are glad that their community will not only continue to have an ambulance, but also will have immediate access to Advanced Life Support services that previously responded from Lititz or Ephrata.
“Our goal is to provide a financially sustainable solution to EMS in our community”, explained Kurt Gardner when working through the merger agreements.
Mergers are not new to Northwest EMS. The first merger of community ambulances took place in 2000, when the Elizabethtown Fire Company Ambulance and the Northwest Advanced Life Support Unit joined forces to become Northwest EMS, Inc. In 2004, Bainbridge Fire Company Ambulance and the Maytown-East Donegal Township Ambulance joined Northwest EMS. In 2013, the Manheim Veterans Memorial Ambulance Association (in Manheim Borough) merged with Northwest EMS.
As part of the merger agreement Northwest EMS has offered one seat on its board of directors to a representative of Brickerville Fire Company to represent the greater Brickerville community.
MAY
2016