By Dave Baumeister
County Correspondent
SIOUX FALLS – At the Tuesday commission meeting, Minnehaha County Ambulance Quality Assurance Director Dr. Jeff Luther presented information data from 2023 about the various county ambulance services.
The services not completely a part of municipalities are Garretson, Humboldt, Dell Rapids, Med-Star ambulance service of Brandon, and PC-EMS of Sioux Falls.
Luther told commissioners that the services for these areas received a total of 2,276 calls. Of those, calls to the volunteer services were 557 in Dell Rapids, 269 in Garretson, and 274 in Humboldt.
The regular ambulance companies, Med-Star and PC-EMS picked up 933 and 243 in-county calls, respectively.
The types of ambulance calls fell mainly into trauma, medical and transfer categories, Luther said.
Medical calls (chest pains, breathing problems, stroke, seizures, etc.) made up the largest share of calls for each service.
Transfers are moving patients from one place to another, such as nursing homes to hospitals.
One set of figures that Luther seemed pleased about was the average response times.
Those times were 11:18 for Garretson, 14:07 for Dell Rapids, 17:12 for Humboldt, 11:08 for Med-Star, and 14:33 for PC-EMS.
Luther also had figures of an 8:17 response time for the Minnehaha County Sheriff’s office, which is often first on the scene with accidents and other traumas.
The remainder of the business at this week’s 36-minute meeting dealt with the purchase of new vehicles and equipment for the sheriff’s office and highway and facilities departments.
The next county commission meeting will be at 9 a.m., Tuesday, March 5, in the third-floor chambers of the Minnehaha County Administration Building at 6th and Minnesota in Sioux Falls.
Comments from the public are allowed with each agenda item, as well as general comments toward the end of each meeting.
