Okla. EMS moves base closer to its core coverage area, reducing response times

Oologah-Talala EMS/Facebook

By Emmet Jamieson
Claremore Daily Progress, Okla.

OOLOGAH, Okla. — The Oologah-Talala area’s ambulance service just moved its fleet to a station much closer to the primary towns it serves.

The new Oologah-Talala Emergency Medical Services headquarters sits off State Highway 88 between Claremore and Oologah, where the road curves just north of where it meets 420 Road. It’s about seven minutes north of OTEMS’ old station by car or ambulance.

Brandi Pond, OTEMS’ executive director, said this puts OTEMS closer to the human center of its 180-square-mile district. The ambulance service’s range overlaps with the Oologah - Talala school district boundaries.

“It’s nice to have an option a little bit closer,” Pond said. “Even though it’s seven minutes, seven minutes is a big difference when you’re having cardiac arrest.”

The old station — now “Station 2" — has a Claremore address but lies just beyond city limits on Industrial Boulevard. Pond said that meant OTEMS’ base of operations was sequestered at the very southern edge of its territory, increasing response times to northwest Rogers County .

She said that was part of the reason it was so important for OTEMS to apply for money to help it move north. Rogers County granted OTEMS about $1.3 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds in 2023. Rogers County spokesperson Diana Dickinson said OTEMS’ award was the largest the county gave during its disbursement of ARPA money.

Pond said the award paid for the new station, an adjacent modular building, three upgraded ambulances and a vehicle uplift that turned a pickup truck into another ambulance.

“It’s like 3.2 acres, so we have the ability to expand,” Pond said. "... Right now for our admin, we lease an office in Oologah , but we would love to put all that together [here] and have a training facility.”

Pond said the move gives OTEMS much more storage space. Its old station took up part of a Rogers County District 1 maintenance building, which Pond said meant a small vehicle bay and not much room for everything an ambulance service needs.
OTEMS is currently moving out of its old station; Pond said she expected the move would be complete by Monday. Dickinson said the county will use the bay OTEMS is vacating to store a paint truck.

“The other bay is literally, put one truck in it, so,” Pond said. “They can sandwich all of these [vehicles] in here, but eventually we’ll need somehow to store the trucks outside of this.”

The ambulance service’s personnel are also moving into an adjacent modular building. It has two beds where EMTs will sleep during their daylong shifts, two bathrooms and a kitchen. The old station also had living quarters, Pond said, but they were smaller.

OTEMS is still using its blue-and-yellow service vehicles emblazoned with an Oologah mustang, but it is soon adding to its fleet four ambulances, including the uplifted truck. They were purchased so recently that the new car smell inside is still organic, not the synthetic tang of tree-shaped air freshener.

The old ambulances’ patient compartments fit just two personnel and the patient; the new ones are roomier, and couch-like seating flanks where the stretcher goes.

“There’s not a lot of space, so you can’t take people with you,” Pond said. “If you’re working a trauma call, people don’t fit in there, so you can’t take a fireman to help with CPR ... and now we can do our own maintenance, and there’s just a lot more space.”

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