Lifeguard Ambulance personnel responded to more than 800 calls in February with an average response time of just more than 15 minutes, according to the monthly operational reported given to the Panola County Board of Supervisors at their Monday meeting in Batesville.

Local director Mickee Ramsey updated supervisors about an additional hire, and one pending hire, since the February report, including one new vehicle and a series of ongoing training endeavors.

The report said Lifeguard responded to 483 requests for service in February and 349 transports, or times when patients needed to be taken from the local medical facility to a hospital or clinic in another city or county.

Average response time for urban calls was 11 minutes, and 20 minutes, 54 seconds, for rural calls. The combined average is 15 minutes, 9 seconds.

The leading call types for Lifeguard in February were for general pain or an unspecified ailment (126 calls), trauma injury (50), chest pain (34), respiratory (33), neurological/stroke/disorientation (35), and behavioral/psychiatric (27).

Panola County and Lifeguard Ambulance recently entered into a new agreement that will have the company provide service here through September 2026. 

Lifeguard has operated in Panola since 2017 with a main base in Batesville and a substation in Sardis. 

Air Evac Lifeteam, also a member of the Global Medical Response family, has one aircraft based in Batesville that can be accessed for medical transportation. Founded in 1990, Lifeguard Ambulance Service provides clinical service and ground transportation to more than 160,000 patients each year. Headquartered in Birmingham, Ala., Lifeguard employs more than 1,150 caregivers across eight states.