Medics from the lone ambulance base serving southern Warren County responded to about 25 percent more calls in 2019 compared to the relatively slow year before that.

Marthasville Community Ambulance Chief Ann Cleavelin said staff ran 424 calls last year. That’s almost 90 more than the 337 calls run in 2018.

Although 2019 might have been one of the busiest years she’s seen, Cleavelin said it isn’t too far off from other high-volume years. For example, district persoonel responded to 413 calls in 2017.

“It fluctuates. Some years are better than others,” Cleavelin commented.

A variety of factors can sway Marthasville’s call numbers for a year. When the Smith Creek bridge on Highway 94 closed for construction in 2018, motorcycle traffic on the scenic highway dropped significantly, leading to a drop in related calls Cleavelin said.

When Emmaus Homes began closing its Marthasville campus for adults with developmental disabilities and began moving clients out of the area, that coincided with a nearly 20 percent decrease in calls for service, the chief said.

Other than that, emergency calls largely depend on the health of people in the area year-to-year. Cleavelin explained that 60 to 75 percent of calls are for illness or medical issues.

“(We run) more cardiac events or respiratory distress, especially in the wintertime and early spring,” she continued.

Out of the remaining 25 to 40 percent of calls in a year, Cleavelin said the bulk are for motor vehicle accidents.

Unlike many other ambulance districts in the region and across the county, the agency sees few cases of opioid overdoses. In fact, Cleavelin said calls for any kind of drug abuse are infrequent.

Still, the district takes precautions whenever a spike in overdose calls hits their neighbors to the north.

“In that event, we go and get our Narcan (an opioid treatment drug) and pre-prepare,” Cleavelin said. “We always have Narcan in our truck, but we’ll get a little bag ready just for overdoses, (in case) it trickles down here.”

One challenge the ambulance district does face has little to do with the patients they treat. Over time, the district has dealt with regular turnover as medics get lured away to work for surrounding ambulance services. Cleavelin commented that it’s getting more difficult to find replacements.

“If we were running another 1,000 calls per year, then we could offer them more pay,” she said. But there’s a lot of competition from the St. Charles County, Warren County and Washington Ambulance Districts. “It’s getting harder and harder, because people want to make more money. It’s the nature of the beast.”

It’s too early to tell what kind of year 2020 will be, but when the ambulance crews aren’t out saving lives, Cleavelin said she plans to have them busier doing more specialty training and more community outreach.

“Everybody who is here wants to be here, they enjoy working here. That is a trend I would like to keep,” Cleavelin commented. “Getting more training and PR stuff is always a challenge, but this year we have a couple (events) coming up we’d like to start doing more of.”