By Travis Gettys
Enquirer contributor

PARK HILLS - Faced with the prospect of being unable to provide round-the-clock ambulance service, Park Hills asked one of its neighbors for help.

"It had gotten to a point where volunteers had gotten too scarce to run our own squad 24 hours a day, seven days a week," said Park Hills Mayor Michael Hellmann.

Fort Wright City Council approved a plan at its meeting Wednesday to provide emergency medical services to Park Hills, which has five part-time professional firefighters and 14 volunteers.

Park Hills will pay $25,000 a year for the services, and Fort Wright will also receive about $25,000 in insurance billing reimbursement funds each year.

"Fort Wright was, in my opinion, very neighborly in making this cost-effective for us," Hellmann said. "They set a cost that is comparable to what we were paying to do it ourselves."

A procedural mix-up, Park Hills will not vote on the proposal until its next city council meeting, May 24, but Hellmann expects the measure to pass.

Kentucky law stipulates that a contract between the two cities must last at least two years, and Hellmann said such an arrangement is likely to continue, barring a surge in volunteer firefighters.

Some Park Hills personnel have been invited to join Fort Wright's Fire Department if they wish to continue serving as emergency medical technicians, a post that requires several months of training, Dreyer said.

The fire departments have worked together as partners since the early 1990s on the Automatic Aid dispatch program, Dreyer said.

"We're familiar with their operations and their people," Dreyer said.

Fort Wright Fire Chief Steve Schewe said this isn't the first time his department, which has 12 paid firefighters and 39 volunteers, has come to the aid of a smaller neighbor, and other cities have done the same thing.

Fort Wright provides fire and emergency protection to Kenton Vale, he said, and nearby Fort Mitchell provides the same service to Crestview Hills and Lakeside Park.

"This will give volunteers the opportunity to make more runs, and get more experience on the EMS side of it," Schewe said. "This will lend itself to a little more activity."