A six-person team of Austin-Travis County EMS medics and Austin firefighters counted to three before they hoisted a 78-year-old man onto a gurney outside his home in Southeast Travis County.
The man had fallen outside his home three days earlier and was able to crawl inside. He said he called 911 for help after he realized his strength was not coming back enough to pick himself up off the ground.
Medics treated him in the back of an ambulance, hanging IVs, taking his blood pressure and pulse. The medics also checked for additional injuries after seeing the man couldn't bend one of his knees.
The ambulance then took him to a hospital.
But the emergency services department said this call could have been answered with a smaller team and vehicle — a model it wants to move toward.
EMS Commander Selena Xie said these calls — when a patient needs medical attention but not necessarily an ambulance — are one of the most common types ATCEMS gets.
Xie, who is running for a seat on the Austin City Council against District 8 incumbent Paige Ellis, said life-threatening situations like heart attacks, strokes and car crashes make up about 10% of calls to EMS. Regardless of the nature of the call, an ambulance staffed with medics responds, she said.
ATCEMS Chief Robert Luckritz said that may not be the best use of resources. He said the department has other programs, including basic life support ambulances, mental health responders and single unit responders, that can provide care with less people and smaller vehicles. Luckritz said expanding those programs could help reserve ambulances for potentially life-threatening calls.
But those expansions are not going to happen anytime soon, after Austin voters rejected Proposition Q, a property tax increase that would have added $110 million to the city's budget.
"We know that these programs would not be overnight programs," Luckritz said. "We still have to deal with the staffing issues that we are facing and we still have to deal with filling the seats in the new programs that we've expanded in our department. But Prop Q would've been a long-term transition to those programs."
Under the revised budget, ATCEMS got about $3 million to fund overtime costs. Luckritz said that will allow the department to staff ambulances to respond to calls in a timely manner. He said the department continues to train and recruit cadets and look at other ways they can help serve the community's needs with the existing funding.
“We’ve added a number of ambulances, community health paramedics, and mental health responders over just the last three to four years,” he said. “So we need to rethink how it is that we are going to grow effectively, not only to keep up with the existing department, but with the new, larger growing department.”
After Prop Q failed, Austin City Manager T.C. Broadnax told council members they would have to be more realistic about what the city can fund.
Some critics say the issue is not how much money the city has, but instead how City Council chooses to prioritize spending. Attorney Adam Loewy has spoken out against Austin’s funding for homeless services and rebranding efforts.
“Whoever you are, Democrat or Republican, I think we all can agree that we need EMS strong,” Loewy said Wednesday at a panel hosted by the conservative think tank Texas Public Policy Foundation. “But I think people realized we have the money for EMS from the current budget, but we’re spending it on insane things as opposed to getting them more money.”
Broadnax said the city is doing an internal audit of its spending to try and find cost savings. He and his team are also looking at ways to bring in new revenue, which could support EMS and other crucial services.
