FAIRFIELD – Jefferson County Ambulance Service invites the public to celebrate the grand opening of the newly renovated ambulance building during a ceremony from noon to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 31.

The ambulance building is in the former First National Bank at 1900 W. Burlington Ave. in Fairfield. Jefferson County purchased the building in the summer of 2022, and later decided it was the best place to house the newly formed county-run ambulance service. Jefferson County had previously relied on private companies for its ambulance service, but that changed when the service was turned over to the county on Oct. 1.

Jefferson County Ambulance Director Brian Thomas said Tuesday’s grand opening will give the public a chance to see the renovations that occurred over the summer and continued right up through the end of September. The most noteworthy change is the addition of the three-door garage bay on the south side of the building. It’s housing the service’s two ambulances plus a vehicle on loan from Libertyville Fire and Rescue, which is serving as the county’s third emergency response vehicle until its third ambulance arrives in late November.

The Fairfield High School drill team is scheduled to perform at Tuesday’s grand opening.

Damien Wimmer, the ambulance service’s field training officer, said it was a mad dash on Sept. 30, because the staff got their ambulances with 24 hours to prepare for the hand over of service from CARE. He said that they were working 18 hours a day in the days leading up to Oct. 1, and on top of that, the renovations to the building were still being finished.

Wimmer said the staff deep cleaned the ambulances they received on Sept. 30 and made sure they had every piece of equipment necessary by midnight.

In just under three weeks since taking on the service, Jefferson County Ambulance Service had responded to 87 calls, including eight hospital transfers. Its two advanced life-support (ALS) rigs are on call 24/7, and are staffed by at least one paramedic. The ambulance has 15 fulltime medics, including seven who are certified Critical Care Paramedics.

“We have more medics than any surrounding county,” Thomas said.

Thomas said there are 27 people on the roster including both fulltime and part-time employees, and of those, 17 are paramedics, which requires additional training beyond that required to become an emergency medical technician (EMT).

All of the 17 paramedics are local hires. That might not seem like a noteworthy statistic, but it’s worth remembering that finding local paramedics was very difficult last year, and was one of the reasons that CARE Ambulance and the Jefferson County Ambulance Service Agency went to court. The service agency charged CARE with violating its contract to have two ALS ambulances on call 24/7. CARE argued in court that there were not enough paramedics available to supply two ALS ambulances at all times, and that they had chosen to stop relying on traveling paramedics because they were so expensive.

Wimmer said that traveling paramedics are “one thing we will definitely never need.” Thomas said all of the credit for finding paramedics goes to ambulance base director Judy Heisel. Heisel has worked in emergency services for 20 years, and had four years of experience working as the ambulance base director under Midwest Ambulance and later CARE Ambulance. When CARE let Heisel go in January, it prompted eight of her fellow employees to resign, all of CARE’s Fairfield staff at the time.

In the months leading up to this transition to being a county-run service, Heisel said she reached out to several paramedics and EMTs she had worked with before, and they were eager to work with her and the new management.

Three CARE employees stayed on for the transition and became county employees on Oct. 1. Another eight to 10 employees who used to work for CARE came back to work for Jefferson County after the transition.

Heisel said the ambulance service’s response times are better now that the ambulance base is located on the main drag and closer to the center of town. CARE’s ambulance base was just south of Fairfield on 227th Street.

“We can get to the north side of town quicker than what it would have been before,” Heisel said.

Wimmer said he’s received nothing but positive feedback, especially from the staff at the Jefferson County Health Center’s Emergency Room, following the transition.

“What I’ve heard is, ‘Thank God you guys are back,’” Wimmer said.