(STURGIS) – The Sturgis City Commission received an update on the City’s ambulance service.

During a recent work session, Sturgis Director of Public Safety Ryan Banaszak presented how the service has been going in the ten months since it started.

The City runs both a Basic Life Support (BLS) and an Advanced Life Support (ALS) service. Banaszak says 95% of the time, they are running at the highest level possible which is ALS with a paramedic. Many days, he says they are running two ALS ambulances.

One of the reasons the City looked at doing their own ambulance service once again instead of contracting with Life Care Ambulance was due to response times. Banaszak says in January 2021, was when the City started having some concerns about the response times from Life Care. ...... {LISTEN}.

In the last quarterly report from when Sturgis had their contract with Life Care, they were averaging 73% compliance with Priority 1 calls and 79% with Priority 3 calls.

Banaszak shares how Sturgis Ambulance has been in responding to calls. ...... {LISTEN}.

Banaszak also shared that over 80% of their calls see individuals taken to Sturgis Hospital.