BELL COUNTY, Texas (KXXV) — Residents and emergency personnel in rural parts of the county are calling for change when it comes to emergency services, particularly adding more ambulances to improve EMS response times.
Watch the story here:
Sparta Volunteer Fire Department Chief Robert Whaley-Hadrick III said the demands on emergency services in the area have become overwhelming at times, with calls not matching the qualified EMS professionals and equipment in the area.
"Everything that's not law enforcement is a fire department problem. The biggest, I think the biggest hurdle we run into is, is, especially when it comes to response times, is manpower, staffing, and demand. There's such a high demand for, for 911," Hadrick said.
Sparta VFD works around the response time rate by sending fire trucks to EMS calls to get vitals and basic information while an ambulance is en route.
Residents have been vocal about their concerns speaking at the county commissioners meeting.
After petitioning in 2025, residents are pushing again for an Emergency Services District, which would centralize resources for a region of the county through central funding. It would be the third such district in the county.
Hadrick cautioned that while the district will help, it would not be an immediate fix for all problems.
"I think there's this mentality that this is going to be a fix-all to all of our problems and it's, it's not, it's gonna be a fix to our EMS problems. So everyone's gonna have an ambulance now and every station's gonna have one, that's not what's gonna happen. What will happen is that eventually we will get to a point where the funding is there, and a lot of people don't understand that the biggest problem in EMS is funding," Hadrick said.
County commissioners are working to iron out the details of the new ESD and continuing to listen to residents' concerns, but Hadrick said the community will have to bear with them in the meantime and understanding how the system works is key.
"I think the biggest thing if I could educate the community on anything is, is understanding the difference between, you know, understanding that response, understanding the stress from the system, and a lot of what we're seeing specifically in, in this district and in our county is that there are what we call lower acuity calls," Hadrick said.
At the last county commissioner meeting, commissioners voted to fix the boundaries for Bell County Emergency District Three and tabled the decision to put it on the November 2027 ballot.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
