Cabot City Council fires ambulance service

For the second time in a year, the city is looking for another ambulance service after a disagreement with the current one. By uninamious vote at a special council meeting Tuesday night, the council voted to terminate its contract with Arkansas Emergency Transport. Cabot city leaders say Arkansas Emergency Transport has not only failed to maintain an adequate response time, but is also in breach of it`s contract. By contract, AET must repsond to its call in eight minutes, 90 percent of the time. But a city evaluation in December showed it only responded within eight minutes, 88 percent of the time. "There was a call to go out to a child emergency and it took them 29 minutes to respond to the child emergency," explained Mayor Stubby Stumbaugh. "We failed to keep a unit in the city to cover them," said Sharon Thomas, AET`s Cabot site manager. When asked if there was an explanation for the delay that day, Thomsas said, "You`ll have to ask Mr. Hosman that. I didn`t make that call." Roger Hosman is the company president. The service is also required to keep two ambulances in city limits at all times. But in a letter written from Hosman to the city on Monday, Hosman said, "This problem is directly related to the public displays of slander and ill will at the November and December public city council meetings...Our employees recongize the uncertainty of doing business in an unstable environment where the Mayor and City Council wish you to be replaced." Hosman did not otherwise return calls for comment. Metropolitan Emergency Medical Service, or MEMS, will fill in in Cabot, temporarily, until the city decides what to do next. Leaders say they plan to return ambulance service to the fire department. Although, that could take some time and about $500,000 to get started.