Randolph EMS station expanding

ELKINS -- Randolph County Emergency Squad director Kurt Gainer talked about the expansion of the Emergency Squad's Station 3 in Harman during this week's Randolph County Commission meeting this week.

"On Jan. 1 we launched our Harman station to a 24-hour, 365-day per year shift," Gainer said. "The Harman station was originally opened in 2017 and initial plans were for us having just one person hired to just sort of manage that station during the weekdays, Monday through Friday, while the volunteer and part-time contingent were at work. But we just kept expanding and continued to get busier, so obviously we needed more trucks on the road."

The Harman location now features six full-time employees -- three paramedics and three EMTs. The main areas of coverage include Harman, Dry Fork, Job, Allegheny Mountain, Whitmer and some of the Glady area.

Gainer said the Randolph County EMS has also been helping out in Tucker County as much as possible.

"We are covering a significant amount of calls in Tucker County right now," Gainer told the commissioners. "Off the Elkins side we are helping cover Parsons, St. George, Hambleton and Hendricks. Off the Station 3 side in Harman, we are helping with Canaan Valley, Thomas and Davis.

"We also have a live contract right now where we are supplying an ambulance to Timberline Ski Resort on the weekends. We have an off-duty crew that comes in on Saturdays and Sundays that is dedicated to that ski resort."

Before the expansion in Harman, there were just three full-time EMTs that rotated Monday through Friday during the daytime hours at that location. The addition gives the Randolph County Emergency Squad three 24-hour, 365-day stations, with Elkins and Mill Creek being the other two.

Harman and Mill Creek currently have two ambulances apiece, while the Elkins station has seven.

"All three stations are the same now," Gainer said. "Obviously we have more crew in Elkins, but the Harman station is identical to what we have in Mill Creek now."

Gainer said that once Corridor H is completed, the Randolph County EMS is hoping to put a station on the interstate somewhere.

"We'd like to have a station on the interstate to run that whole sort of bilateral Leading Creek to Coalton area, those two fire districts," Gainer said. "That's a goal in the future for us here. And that will also help us serve Barbour, Upshur and Tucker better being right on the interstate.

"It would expand our response times to both the Coalton and Leading Creek fire districts. It would also get us out of having to work our way through the traffic in Elkins, we could just hit the interstate and go wheels up."

Gainer also told the Commission that the Randolph County EMS transported 7,833 patients in 2022, which is a 20% increase from the previous year.

"We had a couple slow months at the start of 2022 because of COVID shutting everything down in January and February," Gainer said. "But then we got really busy this summer and exploded again. For the call to dispatches we had 9,223 last year. It was our busiest year to date."

Gainer also announced that he, Deputy Director Heather Brown and Captain Janette Basile recently completed a state-supported EMS leadership class through the University of Charleston. The online course enabled each one to earn 15 hours of college credit in management and leadership.