DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — An ambulance company that serves DeKalb County will have to fork over almost 2 million in fines and services over slow response times.
11Alive broke the story of an American Medical Response staffer who hit a teenage patient in the back of an ambulance after that patient reportedly spit on her. We were also the first to report about an AMR ambulance getting stuck in the grass when it tried to drive off road while rushing a 3-year-old seizure patient to the hospital.
MORE STORIES
AMR agreed to pay almost $600,000 in fins and nearly $1.3 million to increase service to help alleviate slow response times, which the company said was in-part because of the rapid rate of growth in DeKalb County.
Its contract with DeKalb County is up at the end of the year, but there's no word whether it will get a new one.
11Alive reached out to AMR for a comment, who said:
“We appreciate the firm leadership of DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond and his entire team. The commitment and diligence of Fire Chief Fullum and DeKalb County Fire Rescue permitted us to address the critical issues in a collaborative fashion and make the appropriate changes to further strengthen ambulance response in DeKalb County. We also greatly appreciate the community’s patience while we conducted our review. Getting to the bottom of the root causes and developing system changes required an exhaustive analysis. There was a great deal of data to sift through to fully understand the complex situation and recommend solutions that would best serve all the citizens of DeKalb County.”
