Saving Lives in South Zanesville

Tuesday’s a big day for the South Zanesville Fire Department.

Tuesday, marks the first time in over 20 years that South Zanesville and Springfield Township have had an ambulance of its own.

While South Zanesville has had no problem with the two private ambulance services in town, they felt this service would help them better serve their community with faster response time.

“We can better respond to our citizens. We were at the mercy of two private services when we had a call to have them come in and most of the time we were there on the scene first,” explained South Zanesville Chief Russell Taylor.

Of the 25 members on staff more than half are trained to be EMTs with another five in class to be certified.

One fire fighter said that this shows how their roles have changed over the years.

“Back in the day firefighters were firefighters they fought fire and that was it,” said South Zanesville Captain Jacob Waltemire. “That role has changed. We fight fires we respond to hazmat calls. We’re doing EMS now, EMS is a big portion of our call volume, probably over 75 percent of our calls are EMS.”

It took three years from the start of the process to receiving the ambulance, funded with taxpayer money.

Chief Taylor and Captain Waltemire said it took time to choose an ambulance that would best suit the needs of the community and develop a protocol to treat patients and receive a drug license through the state.