Emergency medical services make up the front lines for Harvey County residents when they have a medical emergency. And according to Harvey County Emergency Communications, the number of total EMS responses has dropped for the third year in a row.
Response calls for EMS in the county totaled 4,170 for 2018, a four-percent decrease from 2018 and a nearly 10-percent decrease from 2016.
Hesston and Newton both saw decreases in service calls, according to numbers provided by the county. Calls to transfer patients, the most common EMS-related call into dispatch, dropped by nine percent to 708 for the year.
While overall calls decreased, some specific categories of calls increased for county-wide EMS services.
The county took 208 suicide attempt calls in 2018, 19 more than in 2017 and an increase of 83 from 2015. Calls to respond to people who were sick jumped from 415 to 515 over the year, and EMS responded to 37 more reports of seizures than the prior year.
In total, 911 calls decreased by 12 percent.
(Read more: Newton Now)