Lane LifeTrans will take over emergency medical response

By Sean Barron

The population of Lake Milton swells in the summer, a fire chief said.

NORTH JACKSON — A longtime ambulance company reached an agreement with several fire departments in western Mahoning County to provide emergency medical response services to those areas.

The fire chiefs of Jackson, Berlin, Milton and Ellsworth townships as well as Craig Beach Village announced at a news conference Monday at the Jackson Township fire station that Lane LifeTrans will include their communities in its coverage area after Toledo-based Med Corp. plans to stop providing dispatch and EMS services to the areas. The company is to cease operations Thursday.

The agreement should ensure better and faster coverage and transportation, as well as help firefighters become more active as first responders, a move that can get victims to the hospital faster and save more lives, some officials said.

“I applaud the fire chiefs of western Mahoning County for solving a potentially serious problem,” said Joseph D. Lane, the company’s chief executive officer.

The Jackson Township fire station, on state Route 45, will house a Lane ambulance unit, which will give paramedics a base of operation in the new coverage region. Lane also will be offering EMS training to firefighters in the five communities.

Chief Robert Sternburg of Ellsworth said he learned around late June that Med Corp. was planning to close its doors, a move that prompted him and several other fire chiefs to contact several EMS companies.

Collectively, it was agreed that Lane would fill the void, in part because of its long history in the Mahoning Valley and because “we have a lot of good history with the company,” Sternburg said.

The service agreement “lifted a 100-pound weight from my shoulder,” he added. There was no cost estimate provided for the agreement.

Lane LifeTrans is the Valley’s oldest and largest ambulance/EMS company, having been founded in 1955.

Chief Rick Pellin of Jackson Township pointed to the timing of the agreement, saying it’s critical to have the coverage partly because of the number of people who live in or visit the area.

The combined population of the four 25-square-mile townships and village is more than 10,000, but that figure swells by thousands in the summer, when many more people come to Lake Milton State Park and surrounding areas, Pellin noted.

Also, many others drive through the area via Interstate 76 and the Ohio Turnpike, which can create a “huge burden” on first responders, Pellin said, adding that Lane also has a contract to cover part of the Ohio Turnpike.