When CentraCare Emergency Services (EMS) opened its operations center in Big Lake in the former Big Lake Police station last month, it was a homecoming.

 

That’s because it used to be the home of the local ambulance service.

 

“The front part of this building was the original ambulance garage the hospital built,” says EMS Director Gordy Vosberg. “We housed two van ambulances. When a call came in, people would respond here, pick up an ambulance and go.”

 

For years, the EMS unit was located at the Monticello-Big Lake Hospital, says Vosberg. But it actually started in Big Lake.

 

“In 1965 or 1966, a couple in Big Lake, Joe and Doris Cook, started what is our ambulance service,” he says. “They operated out of their home with Cadillac ambulances until about 1979 when they sold the service to the Monticello Hospital.”

 

Vosberg was an EMS volunteer for a few years shortly after the hospital bought the service.

 

“They moved the service to Monticello and went from on-call volunteers to paid full-staffed rigs,” says Vosberg. “They also went to advanced life support.”

 

With advanced life support allows, as opposed to basic life support, paramedics can do advanced cardiac interventions, minor surgical procedures and administer a much broader spectrum of medications.

From the late 1980s through 2007 the service was run out of the Monticello Hospital.

 

Vosberg says he felt there needed to be some EMS presence in Big Lake to cut down on service call times.

 

“One bridge connects our primary service area, otherwise you have to go 12 miles in either direction to move across the river,” says Vosberg.

 

He set up a meeting with the Big Lake Fire Chief, who was also concerned about rail traffic in Big Lake blocking ambulances.  “He offered us a place in the fire station,” he says. “At that point we kept one crew in Monticello and moved the other crew to Big Lake.”

 

The fire station had garage bays for two ambulances and crew’s quarters. That’s how the EMS operated until last month when the old police station near the corner of Hwy. 25 and Hwy. 10 in Big Lake became CentraCare’s EMS Operations Center.

 

“The fire station was a nice setup. But what we needed was a place to consolidate our operations. We had trucks in three different locations and our supplies were in various spots,” says Vosberg.

 

“This building sits almost in the middle of our primary service are. We’ve got major access east, west, north and south. We’re able to hit our calls quite easily.”

 

And there are plenty of calls. From the start of the fiscal year (since July, 2015) the EMS received 3,107 requests for service, including 1,871 in the Monticello area, 687 in the Big Lake area and 401 in  the Becker area.

 

“One of the things we’re proud of is our response times. We average 7.3 minutes,” says Vosberg.

 

In comparison, the Metro Area standard is 90% within 11 minutes.

 

“By pre-positioning these trucks, you can really reduce response times significantly,” says Vosberg. “And a short response time save lives.”

 

Vosberg says he started looking at the building last August.

 

“We toured the building and quickly realized this was the place we needed to be,” he says.

 

They closed on the building in late February and have been reconditioning the site. They removed an old break room and an evidence locker, added a garage door and widened the other two doors from nine to 10 feet. Now the site can house multiple ambulances and has a crew’s quarters.

 

Each day the Monticello crew picks up its ambulance and heads across the river.

 

A third truck is also located at the Becker Fire Station from noon until 8 p.m. to cover the peak afternoon period.

 

“One of the things that’s important to us is to maintain a presence in all the communities in our primary service area,” he says. “This started out as a community volunteer ambulance service with community members pulling together to cover emergencies.”

 

Being part of the community also means participating in local events.

 

“We cover Music in the Park, the Big Lake block party, Spud Fest, the Big Lake Fire open house, football games and we give day care tours. We want to give back to the community.”

 

“And sitting here in this building, we’ve come full circle,” says Vosberg. “We started in the building. We left the building and we’re back again.”

 

“We’re really excited to be back here.”