Mercer Ambulance ceases services to town

On New Year’s Eve, Mercer Ambulance and Rescue notified the town of Mercer it would not be servicing the town and surrounding communities effective at the start of 2025, town chairman Eric Snow announced in a press release.

“While we are disappointed with the short notice, and had hoped for a seamless transition, other arrangements have been made,” Snow said in the press release. “The Town of Mercer has been working towards the creation of a new EMS (emergency medical services). That service should be up and running soon. In the meantime, our friends from our neighboring communities are going to help cover calls in the interim until the new service is ready. Please be advised that response times may be delayed.”

Snow asked the public to contact the town if they had any questions or concerns.

The Mercer Ambulance and Rescue was a private business that was subsidized by the town, Snow told The Lakeland Times. The town, he said, provided the business with two ambulances, a building, paid insurance, paid state training and other equipment.

“But the town never had any say or authority in their operations,” Snow said. “So, somehow, what slipped through the cracks … the town and the ambulance service never actually entered into a contract.”

A contract was drafted, he said, however, it was never ratified by the parties. 

“That being said, the terms of the contract have been being followed by both of the parties since 2019,” Snow said. “So earlier this year, we started having some discussions about we need to either draft a new contract or come up with a new plan, and based on the information … of them being private but subsidized, I and the town board at the time thought it was a good idea to start pursuing some alternate routes, which led to us trying to merge the EMS service with the fire department so it was all under the umbrella of the town board’s authority.”

He said existing EMS members were asked if they would “continue service to the community, just under the umbrella of the town.”

Snow said “unfortunately” members weren’t “interested in  that.”

“So we had several meetings, quite a few meetings at the town level on this topic and every time that the question that the question had come up by concerned members of the community of ‘What happens on New Year’s at midnight, are we out of an ambulance service?’ Well the town’s perspective was … we were hoping for a seamless transition … from the existing service to the new service,” he said. “And when that question was asked, my response would always be that ‘That’s going to be up to the existing service if they’re going to provide that transition for us.’ I was notified, as I said in that release, I was notified via email at 12:55 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, less than 12 hours in advance from when they decided when they were done.”

Because of the on-going discussions surrounding the town’s ambulance situation, Snow said he wasn’t completely caught off guard. But, at the same time, he said there was no indication Mercer Ambulance and Rescue would “pull the plug at midnight.”

“It was an unfortunate turn of events, but we’ve been working on the creation of this new service, which would be the merger of the fire department and the EMS service, which we hope to have up and running within the next couple of weeks,” he said.

He said the town contacted “all” surrounding townships to get assistance “as their staffing allows.” 

This, Snow said, is in addition to Oneida County, with which the town has an EMS intercept agreement. 

The situation is “very concerning,” he said. 

“From the first time that we sat down when these conversations started back in June (when) I made very clear that my first and primary concern was to avoid a lapse in coverage,” Snow said. “Which is why I had asked the previous service if this is the direction that we go, if they would provide us with this seamless transition. Unfortunately with them being a private entity and not having any authority over them, they opted not to provide that for us, which is their right to do, it’s just an unfortunate event that affects the community this way.”

Snow had an appointment on Jan. 2 to meet with the state with regard to ambulance coverage. He said he’s been in continuous contact with the state since this situation has evolved.

“The town is and has been working on getting this solved for several months now,” he said. “So we hope that we’re pretty close (and) it should be within the next couple of weeks.”

Trevor Greene may be reached via email at [email protected].