Emergency services report shows rising call volumes and repeated 'no units available' events

Director Bill Oaten, Culpeper County’s director of emergency services, told the Public Safety Committee the office has responded to 3,178 calls for service since the start of the year and transported 1,907 patients, with 34 air-medical flyouts. "We're now up to 3,178 calls for service that we responded to," Oaten said, adding the department averaged about 17.6 calls per day for the semester and 18.1 calls per day in the most recent quarter.

Oaten defined "NUA," or no units available, as occasions when all three staffed units are committed. He said the semester report shows 211 NUAs year-to-date and 83 instances classified as "NUA with pending," meaning fourth- or fifth-tier calls were left pending. For the current quarter he said there were 105 NUAs and 49 NUA-with-pending events. "So it's a 7% increase for just our department," Oaten summarized of recent quarter-to-quarter trends.

Oaten directed the committee to a breakdown of call types in the packet, saying the largest categories were sick unknowns followed by chest pain, falls and accidents. He also noted that the office participated in a Virginia Department of Health statewide exercise designed to practice mass-medication distribution and that county staff completed a familiarization visit at a local Amazon data center to improve response readiness.

On nonemergency calls, Oaten said the county implemented a Code 0 reporting program on June 1 to allow first responders to mark calls that do not meet emergency criteria; he said 17 calls have been reported under that program so far and a fuller presentation will come at the October public-safety meeting. Oaten said revenue-recovery figures for April and May are included in committee packets but that one month’s data was delayed in processing and will be available later in the week.

The meeting recorded no formal policy votes on these items. The committee adjourned after routine business.