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Forty Hours A Week At The Straight Road FIre Station
October 28, 2011

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t’s been a long time coming, but the Oriental area now has an ambulance team positioned at the Station 19 fire house on Straight Road. The team of two Emergency Medical Technicians is on call there for 40 hours during the work week. They’ve been in place for two weeks.

Home to the Pamlico Rescue satellite, the fire station on Straight Road at the edge of Oriental.

TW Harris, captain of the Pamlico Rescue Squad says the Oriental team would work as a satellite to the main rescue squad station in Bayboro. If an emergency comes in closer to the Oriental station, that team will respond to it. If the Bayboro team is out on a call and a second call comes in, the Oriental team would attend to that patient, regardless of where the emergency is in the county.

Oriental area residents, many of them retirees, have sought an ambulance presence here for years on the grounds that it would reduce the response times, especially to the hospital in New Bern. Until the setting up of the satellite station in Oriental, residents making a 911 call had to wait for the ambulance crew to travel the 11+ miles from Bayboro — and then be transported back through Bayboro for the 30+ mile trip to the hospital in New Bern. (That will still be the case outside of the 40 hours a week that the Oriental station is staffed.)

Another improvement coming to Pamlico Rescue is that it will soon have paramedics on each shift. At least 4 people have trained and been certified to provide that highest level of emergency care. They will be able to administer a number of medications — especially important in heart emergencies — that the EMT’s cannot. That should also increase a patient’s chance of survival.

Posted Friday October 28, 2011 by Melinda Penkava