News editor
There was a steep increase in ambulance calls to motor vehicle accidents in March, compared to January and February. Marion County Emergency Medical Service responded to 15 crashes in March; there were four in January and one in February.
Hillsboro responded to five of the crashes; Marion and Florence each responded to four; and Peabody and Tampa each responded to one.
EMS Director Steve Smith said there was no obvious explanation for why there were so many more in March. March 2012 had the same number of crashes in the county.
“I was curious about that, too,” he said. “I went back and looked.”
There were a couple of rollovers while roads were slushy after a March snow, but most crashes weren’t associated with bad weather, Smith said.
There were 103 total ambulance calls in March, including 25 transfers, 25 medical emergencies, 15 no-transports, 9 falls, 7 cardiac emergencies, 6 canceled calls, and 1 standby. In comparison, there were 84 ambulance calls in March 2012.
Marion ambulance responded to 36 calls; Hillsboro, 30; Peabody, 21; Florence, 10; and Tampa, 6. Goessel first response responded to one call. Burns, Durham, and Lincolnville first response didn’t respond to any calls in March.