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Lutz Or Progress Village? Where Should Ambulance Go?

Tribune file photo

This ambulance, seen at Station 1 located off 78th Street near Progress Village, has been relocated to Lutz.

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By MIKE SALINERO | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 21, 2009

TAMPA - Hillsborough County fire officials are once again recommending that an advanced life support ambulance be moved full time from a Lutz fire station to the much poorer minority community of Progress Village.

Fire department officials will recommend the move to county commissioners at a Thursday meeting. The recommendation is based on data collected between Oct. 2 and Jan. 6 showing there were 594 calls for advanced life support service at the Progress Village fire station compared to 246 in Lutz.

The average number of advanced life support calls for all department rescue units is 552, said David Travis, chief of the department's Rescue division.

"There's more of a need in the Progress Village area," said Travis.

Fire department officials wanted to move the ambulance in October, saying the Progress Village fire station got triple the calls for advanced life support services as Lutz. The unit had been splitting time between the two areas for the previous 11 months, operating in Progress Village in the daytime and Lutz at night.

But county commissioners approved up to $178,000 in overtime to maintain advanced life support ambulances full time at both stations until this month. During that time, the Rescue department was to collect data to see whether a full-time ambulance was needed at the Lutz volunteer station on Lutz-Lake Fern Road.

Commissioners balked at moving the ambulance after they received reports that a Lutz man died due to a slow response from paramedics. The man suffered a stroke in the daytime while the advanced life support vehicle and crew were in Progress Village. An ambulance from Pasco County responded to the call 25 minutes after a 911 call was made.

But Travis said the original call for help said the man had fallen off a bike and didn't mention a stroke, so advanced life support was not dispatched.

"The biggest problem with the response time was that it was initially dispatched as a basic life support call," Travis said.

The Lutz fire station is staffed with a full-time paramedic and a fire truck that can handle paramedic calls, Travis said.

"To fund an additional rescue unit is expensive," Travis said. "The department recommendation is to relocate and not fund an additional resource at this time in this budgetary climate."

Commissioners meet at 9 a.m. Thursday in the Fred. B. Karl County Center at 601 E. Kennedy Blvd., Tampa.

Reporter Mike Salinero can be reached at (813) 259-8303.

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