City of Greenbelt mayor raises concerns about county emergency response times

GREENBELT, Md. ( DC News Now ) — In Prince George’s County, the Mayor of Greenbelt, Emmett Jordan, is concerned over emergency response times from the county’s fire and EMS departments.

The issue comes after staffing changes were implemented due to a staffing shortage the county says it’s facing.

Since the summer, the Greenbelt Volunteer Fire Department station and fire and EMS departments in nearby jurisdictions have been temporarily closed to move nearly 55 employees to other stations and address staffing shortages.

According to Mayor Jordan, losing their fire department has slowed down response times and put people’s lives in jeopardy, and he wants to find a solution.

“Our biggest concern is the health and safety of our residents, both in Greenbelt and the surrounding areas,” Jordan said.

Due to the impact of the summer staffing plan, Jordan and other Greenbelt leaders sent out a letter of concern to Prince George’s County fire chief Tiffany Green.

“So the response time over the past few months has actually suffered, particularly for the advanced lifesaving ambulance calls. We wrote the letter because we really want to know what’s going to happen next,” Jordan said.

In the letter, he listed three recent incidents where response times were a concern. One of them included a man with a medical emergency that died. It’s not clear if that death was directly tied to a slow response time, but the mayor says it’s still unsettling.

“There’s a national standard of about eight minutes for advanced lifesaving calls. So we need to do better. We can do better,” he said.

He’s asking for transparency, to reopen local fire departments and to help find a solution, especially regarding recruiting.

“The fire department gives us some information, we’ve asked them more. We really want to have access to the raw data because we hear things from our residents,” Jordan said. “I think we can do better, I think we need to do better, so we need to put our heads together in partnership and come up with ways that we can do better for Prince George’s County,” he added.

The Town of Berwyn Heights and nearby jurisdictions, including Greenbelt, filed a lawsuit against Prince George’s County to seek a declaratory judgment and a motion for temporary and preliminary injunctive relief to end the temporary summer staffing plan.

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