There’s no holiday for the EMS

Every month the Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services chief of staff comes to the Public Safety Commission to present monthly stats on what the EMS has been experiencing in terms of call volumes. On Sept. 4, Chief of Staff Jasper Brown told the commission that in August, they had received just over 9,300 calls. On an average month, he said 300 to 400 of those are priority one, and August was right on target. “Can we expect to see these numbers rise or fall as we go into fall?” Commissioner Ed Scruggs asked the chief. Unfortunately, we won’t. According to Brown, “There’s not really a big spike season to season” because summertime heatstroke calls are replaced with flu-related emergencies, and outdoor-related injury calls remain high because Austin is an outdoor city year-round. However, Brown did note that the call volumes are increasing year over year and downtown’s District 9 consistently receives the highest number of calls. Austin-Travis County EMS is currently working to fill its 62 vacant field positions to help respond to the increasing demand for its services.