New ambulance service for Montgomery County

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — One Capital Region County is getting a new ambulance service after cutbacks forced law enforcement to pick up the slack. NEWS10 has the latest on the service that just kicked off on Monday.

“Really it’s all about patient care and getting an ambulance to somebody who needs it in a timely manner,” said Sergeant Justin Smith with the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office.

Smith will oversee the sheriff’s office EMS division. He tells NEWS10 that it took nearly three years of planning to get to this point.

“It’s been a long process so it’s kind of a Bittersweet moment here today we’ll see where this takes us. We built this from the ground up and we want to build it the right way,” said Smith.

The county saw cutbacks in the industry after volunteer ambulances began to shutter. They relied on just a few companies to maintain EMS service.

Within a couple of hours, the ambulance is already in use. Our cameras were rolling when the ambulance went on its first call, a non-emergency transport of a patient to St. Mary’s Hospital.

Amsterdam Fire Chief Anthony Agresta says Monday was the perfect example of why this ambulance is needed. “We were in a situation where one of our two ambulances is out of service,” said Agresta.

The county hired 16 people to staff the ambulance, two of them full-time. Two of them spoke to NEWS10 on their first day on the job. They tell me they live in the communities they serve and have seen the need for more ambulances.

“It’s definitely a nice way to impact the community I live in,” said EMT Anne Clouthier.

“It will be great to have improved EMS coverage in the county,” said EMT Michael Kent.

Montgomery County Executive Matthew Ossenfort praises the Sheriff’s Office for the new service. “Today the real exciting part is we’re getting off the ground, we got it started and we’re here to supplement and work with providers who are already here,” said Ossenfort.