PRINCE GEORGE COUNTY, Va. (WTVR)--Some Prince George County residents are concerned that their emergency medical crews are understaffed and overworked.
Right now, there is one paid paramedic crew out of the crew building for a 24 hour period and one paid person at company 5 that is available during peak times, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., with volunteers filling in the gaps.
But when multiple calls or patients happen at once, the county must rely on mutual aid or have crews from other jurisdictions respond into the county.
In 2012, Prince George had 2,906 medical calls, nearly 10 percent or 270, of those calls required mutual aid.
That includes one call that took 33 minutes before an EMS crew arrived on scene and the patient was then pronounced dead.
The Board of Supervisors has been presented a plan to hire nine more paid staff, which some say still isn't enough to meet the demands of a county 260 square miles, and with 36,000 residents.
