GREENVILLE — Spirit EMS has again answered the call and is responding to a request for assistance as Hurricane Idalia makes landfall.

As a network provider under American Medical Response’s (AMR) contract with FEMA, Spirit sent five ambulances and 10 crewmembers along with additional medical supplies. Spirit anticipates the crews will be on a 14-day activation, but that can change as the situation evolves. The crews will stay in the area as long as needed. When the crews arrived at their assigned staging area, they were working under the guidance of FEMA, state, and local EMS agencies.

Five ambulances from Spirit left Tuesday morning after an overnight activation by AMR. They arrived in their designated staging area shortly before midnight.

“As first responders, we provide care to those in need; so we view providing assistance to residents and communities being impacted by this disaster an honor,” said Brian K. Hathaway, President/CEO of Spirit EMS. “While we are deploying resources to some of the hardest hit areas, this will not affect our ability to continue providing medical care for the areas we serve across west central Ohio and eastern Indiana.”

Hathaway explained that Spirit has been a network provider for AMR since 2019 and truly values the partnership. The president also shared the company sends a mix of full-time employees and part-time special event and disaster relief personnel, whenever they are activated for a deployment.

“It’s a privilege for our family of professionals to be a part of these deployments whenever the need arises,” Hathaway explained. “We have a group of dedicated employees who remain ready should the call for a deployment occur. On Tuesday morning when we were activated, everyone that was called up to respond arrived on station and were ready to respond within a couple of hours. It’s gratifying to see the support their friends and family show as they head off on these missions.”

He shared that employees from several of the stations the company has across Ohio and Indiana are represented on this deployment. Spirit has stations in Greenville, Celina, Defiance, Houston, Sidney, Van Wert, and Liberty, Ind.

AMR is FEMA’s prime emergency medical service response provider and has a national agreement with FEMA to provide ground ambulance, air ambulance, paratransit services, and non-ambulance EMS personnel to supplement the federal and military response to a disaster, an act of terrorism, or any other public health emergency.