General History of EMS in the United States
The formal history of EMS in Florence County really starts some time before Florence County Government took over the operations of EMS. In the mid 1970's, there were several private ambulance services operating in Florence County. These were Shepards Ambulance Service in Florence, Sullivans Ambulance Service in Lake City, and Floyds Ambulance Service in Olanta. There were also several area rescue squads that provided ambulances. These were Pamplico Rescue Squad, Johnsonville Rescue Squad, Timmonsville Rescue Squad, Florence Rescue Squad, Effingham Rescue Squad, Coward Rescue Squad, Scranton Rescue Squad, and Lake City Rescue Squad (later the South Lynches Rescue Squad).
| The private ambulance services operated basically under their own rules of operation, taking and handling what calls they felt able to, or wished to. In the early 1970's Florence County Goverment formalized some arrangements with Shepards Ambulance Service, to provide a franchised service authorized by the county in the Florence and Lake City areas. On October 1st, 1976, Florence County purchased Shepards Ambulance Service, and changed its assets over to the new Florence County EMS. The previous owner, R.L. Shepard, was retained in the position of director of the new service. The previous operating location on South Dargan Street was maintained, and a location in Lake City was obtained for a crew to work out of, just off South Church Street. Sullivans Ambulance Service continued to operate for a time after Florence County EMS started operations. Floyds Ambulance Service continued until the early 1980's. |
|
The first group of employees consisted of those who were employed when the county took over operations from Mr. Shepard. Of those, only one remains today, David Tebalt, who has been employed here since that time. All other original employees have left the service.
The first crews consisted of 4 people, which made 2 ambulances available in Florence. The Lake City crew had 3 people, and called in an extra person if the first ambulance was going to be out for a while. Florence Rescue Squad provided some ambulance service on a backup basis to the EMS at this time. Florence County helped Florence Rescue buy an ambulance, and part of the agreement was that the squad provide someone to answer the phones at night on the weekends. After a couple of years, Florence Rescue got out of the ambulance transport business, and changed into the rescue provider role they continue in today.
Florence County EMS continued to operate from the location on South Dargan Street for several years. The building they occupied was the original Waters Funeral Home, which had moved to newer facilities across the street. One of the jokes told to new employees was that there were several people still haunting the building, so to be sure they were on one of the units with someone, and not left back at the station alone. In 1979 FCEMS moved to a newer location, about 5 blocks further south, at 727 South Dargan Street. This was an older building, which had been used for several purposes, most recently a branch of the county library, before FCEMS moved in. In the period between the library moving out, and FCEMS moving in, the first paramedic class in Florence County was held at the building.
The time for shifts was a little different back then. Each shift ran for 25 hours, and was off for 23. This provided an overlap in the morning between the on-coming and departing crews. In a 2 week period, a regular employee worked 7 total days of 25 hours, ending up with 175 hours. Only time up to 11pm was paid for, and between 11pm and 7 am the crew punched in and got paid for the time they were on the call. This ended up with the employee getting 120 hours plus time at night, at work. This contrasted with a regular person, who if employed in an office type job, would work 10 days of 8 hours, for 80 hours. So the EMS crews were working 50% more time at straight hours, and much more if the nightime came into consideration. In or about 1982, it was apparent that there was too much workload for the Florence station to allow a day-in, day-out schedule. Since the national trend appeared to be for a 24 hour on, 48 hour off schedule, this was adopted, by hiring enough of the part-time personnel to allow another shift of people to be put on. In these early days, there were a lot of people who supplemented their income by moonlighting at EMS on weekends and some weeknights. Many of these were members of local rescue squads who had taken the EMT course to be able to help at their squad. They then found out they could be paid to run calls also. Many of our part-time and even full-time employees came from a squad background. At one point, we had 24 people on the part-time employee list. The numbers declined over the years, and have never gotten better than half that.
| The EMS station in Lake City remained for several years at the first location that was found for them, operating out of a converted warehouse area that also housed the Lake City Public Works Department. Conditions in this location were pretty primitive, as the county did not pay for any improvements here, preferring to wait until a new facility could be found. Since this stretched to several years, the employees became very creative in acquiring items to improve the facility, adding donated carpet squares to cover the concrete floor, several new rooms, a pool table, and air conditioners. A separate bedroom for the women employees was built by the employees. In 1984 a new location was found, in a small house that had been used as an insurance and realtors office on Highway 52 in Lake City. EMS moved to this location, and substantial improvements to the facility were made, including a fuel tank, additional rooms, and a shed for the units to park under. By this time the Lake City crew had been upgraded to match the Florence crew, by adding an additional person to the crew, to make a total of 4 persons at each station. |  Original EMS Station in Lake City, operating out of an old soybean warehouse. When modern style modules became available, they had to squeeze in to be able to fit inside the bay, climbing up slightly on the tireguards on the sides of the doorway. |
In 1985 R.L. Shepard decided it was time to retire from the business he had directed for so long. He went to work with his wife at the Florence Furniture Barn, a home furnishings business she had been running while he worked with EMS. He continued to drop in and visit occasionally until his death in 1998.
The second Director of EMS was Philip Clarkson. Mr. Clarkson came from a military and business background, and it was felt by the county that he would be able to create a more ordered organization here. Mr. Clarkson had never been involved in the civilian EMS field however, and found that regular business practices did not work the same here. He left after a short period of time.
| The next Director of EMS was Ernest Turner, in 1986. Mr. Turner was a
Chief Deputy with the Florence County Sheriffs
Office, and had a long career there. He decided to try something different
in the years before his retirement, and to give some room in the Sheriffs
Office to newer officers trying to move up. He took over as Director of EMS,
and was also assigned to take over Florence
County Emergency Preparedness, as that position had recently become
open. Mr. Turner, or as he was affectionately known to the employees - "ET", passed on during the night on Thursday, April 6, 2000, following a long illness. |
|
By this time, there were 5 people on a crew in Florence, and 4 in Lake City. Each shift of 5 or 4 people had one person who was the crew chief, who was responsible for that end of the county for that day. Since Florence was the busier station, and administration came from there, the Florence crewchief was usually considered to be in charge, even if not necessarily senior to the other crewchief.
During this period of time, Florence County was in the process of changing over its ambulance line. The initial units that were purchased from Shepard when the county bought his service, had long since been worn out. These initial units had been remounted, but only stayed in service for a few years following this, as they just had too many miles under them. These were Type I units, truck fronts with a patient compartment box. Florence also had a van ambulance, and Lake City had 2. The trend in ambulances was for cost-effective units to provide transports locally, and out-of-town, so several more van Type II units were bought. The Type I units remained in use for regular calls. Florence County EMS was the only ambulance provider for Florence County at this time, except for the area rescue squads. FCEMS provided all ambulance services, both emergency and routine transport, local and out-of-town. Since there were no non-emergency providers, the crews worked both emergency and routine calls. It was not unusual to come in and find 10-15 scheduled calls up for the day, with the emergency calls to be run in between. The record number of calls for one day with a crew of 5, (calling in an extra person when it got too backed up) is thought to be 54 for the Florence Station.
More history to follow
