PRINCETON – Money generated by opioid lawsuit settlements could be used to expand a pager system that dispatches Mercer County’s firefighters not only to fires and crashes, but also to medical emergencies involving drug overdoses and drug exposures.
The county’s nine volunteer fire departments and two city fire departments use a paging system to dispatch firefighters to emergencies quickly, but its range is now limited. Director Julie Lockhart of Mercer County 911 and local firefighters spoke this week with the Mercer County Commission about extending that system.
“Why we’re here and asking for this money is because we have places in our area within the county where we’re not getting properly paged due to the radio system not communicating with our department pagers,” said Chief David Thompson of the Green Valley-Glenwood Volunteer Fire Department.
Lockhart told the commissions that she was giving them proposals for expanding the infrastructure behind 911’s fire department paging system.
“As you know, the fire departments are the backbone of our emergency response and if they don’t get their pages, our residents don’t get the assistance they need,” Lockhart said. “Call volume has increased over the last several years in reference to our fire departments. Many of them are CPR trained and they’re also in first aid. They’re now carrying Narcan not just for people who maybe involved in that type of incident, but also for the responders because they may actually be contaminated when they get on scenes.”
Mercer 911 now has paging equipment on an East River Mountain tower, but the goal is to add paging systems to towers including one at Windmill Gap. Lockhart said she’s also spoken with the West Virginia Turnpike Authority, which has a tower in the Flat Top area, about installing equipment on it. She added that the 911 center is also working with MCA Motorola, which supplies its paging systems and radio equipment.
“I’ve been given quotes on what it would cost to add those two tower sites to our area. It’s going to be around $44,602,” Lockhart said. “And that covers all the hardware and everything we would need to get those implemented for our departments.”
Around another $35,000 would be needed for a generator at one of the towers to make sure there is continuous service, she said.
Besides responding to fire calls, the county’s firefighters also respond to medical calls that could expose them to hazmat situations involving drugs, Lockhart said.
Commissioner Brian Blankenship said he had previously proposed using opioid funds to fill request like the 911 center’s. The request would be put in a resolution showing how it complies with the MOU or memorandum of understanding outlining how opioid money can be spent.
Opioid funds are heavily audited, Blankenship said. There was more leeway with federal American Rescue Plan money that counties and cities were awarded after the Covid-19 pandemic, but money generated from opioid lawsuit settlements is under tighter restrictions.
Blankenship said he would like to revisit the 911 request during the commission’s next meeting. This would allow the commission to research what part of the MOU that it would fall under so it could go into a resolution.
Greg Puckett said that he agreed with Blankenship.
“This is a request that I do believe it fits under,” he said. There are several other ones across the country that do support their 911s through opioid funds, especially when you’re with EMS, safety, security, those kind of things,” he said. “So I know that it fits. I’m very confident 99.98% that it fits, but I would like to see the MOU because I think that does help with transparency. It helps with the audit, too.”
Lockhart said she would like to see the paging system expanded by the end of the year.
After the meeting, Thompson said that his department and others keep Narcan, a drug used to counter drug overdoses, on their trucks.
“If we get paged out, if we get there and it’s an opioid issue or something like that, we can get there and help quicker probably sometimes than an ambulance can,” he said. “So that’s one important factor of having a paging system working properly everywhere for quick response.”
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