Rescue Squad has busiest January ever

NEBRASKA CITY - Nebraska City Rescue experienced its busiest month ever in January, but it was not driven by calls linked to the coronavirus pandemic.

When the pandemic began last March, the squad did set a record for 911 calls, but Paramedic Manager Andrew Snodgrass said COVID-19 calls were few.

Snodgrass: “On a normal average month we run about 90 runs per month. We maintained that average September through December for the most part.”

COVID-19 became more evident in the later months of 2020.

 

Snodgrass: “In November, 40 percent of the patients that we saw were COVID related, where prior to that and even to December that kind of tiered-off, but, when we were at our peak time when the hospitals were mostly closed, almost 40 percent of the patients that we ran on 911 transfer were directly related to COVID.

 

And that has since tiered off, so in the month of January, when we had our busiest month ever on record, we saw less than 10 percent related to COVID.”

He said he analyzed the statistics to find an explanation.

Snodgrass: “It was just busier. We average three runs a day, we always have. In the month of January we averaged about six runs a day.”

Snodgrass: “January, if we were normally here – falls, chest pains, shortness of breaths – everything just went equally up to busier in numbers of it, but not a true trend of more of any one nature of a type of call.”

He said Nebraska City always staffs two ambulances, so they have been able to handle the higher call load and have not had to turn away any calls for medical transfers.

The rescue squad answered a new monthly record of 154 calls in January and Snodgrass says February has started at a similar pace.