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Lutz Loses Out On Ambulance

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By MIKE SALINERO

msalinero@tampatrib.com

Published: January 23, 2009

TAMPA - The Progress Village-Palm River communities will soon get an ambulance and crew to provide around-the-clock advanced life support coverage.

Hillsborough County commissioners voted 6-1 Thursday to permanently station the ambulance and crew in the working-class neighborhoods east of Tampa. For 11 months, the ambulance had split time between Progress Village and Lutz.

Fire Rescue officials recommended the move after a three-month study showed that Progress Village got 594 calls for advanced life-support service compared with 246 in Lutz. The average number of advanced life-support calls for all department rescue units was 552.

Commissioner Jim Norman voted against the move, saying the fire department had "pitted one community against another." Norman also said the fire department had not done a thorough analysis of all fire stations to see which ones got the most or least calls for the service.

Fire Chief Bill Nesmith said the Lutz volunteer station had the fewest calls for advanced life support of any station in the unincorporated areas of the county. Fire stations opened in the past several years on Chapman Road and in the Northdale community reduced the need for the service at the Lutz fire station even more, Nesmith said.

The Lutz station will continue to have a full-time paramedic who can stabilize patients until an advanced life support ambulance arrives, Nesmith said.

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

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