By Julie Ann Grimm
The Santa Fe New Mexican (New Mexico)
Copyright 2006 The New Mexican
Estate homes in Las Campanas come with a drawback many homeowners weren’t expecting: slow emergency service. The luxury community northwest of the Santa Fe city limits is in a rural area served by the Santa Fe County Fire Department. The closest round-the-clock paramedic service is at the county’s public safety complex on N.M. 14. “That’s over by the jail, which is clear on the other side of town,” said George Collins, who is on the board of directors of the Las Campanas homeowners association.
“Most of the people in our community thought there was a manned station in Agua Fría.” The active volunteers of the county’s Agua Fría Fire District respond to calls in the gated community, but their response time and that of theMedic 60 crew stationed at the county complex can stretch to nearly a half hour. For Collins, whose wife died at home last year, that’s too long. Paramedics took a halfhour to respond, but he said he wasn’t sure if a quicker time would have made a difference. Last month, the homeowners board hired a private company to provide round-theclock paramedic service. Beginning next year, about $20 of each month’s $1,100 in homeowner’s dues will go to pay for it. The private paramedics don’t transport patients to the hospital. They act as first responders, treating people as soon as possible. They listen to the county’s emergency response dispatch radio channel but only communicate on it in critical situations, county Fire Chief Stan Holden said. On behalf of Las Campanas, the county investigated creating a special property tax district for the neighborhood to raise revenue to support such services. But the processwould have taken five years or longer, Collins said. “Now if there’s a twisted ankle on the golf course or a major fall off a bicycle or there is a heart event,” Collins said, “our guys on the spot stabilize the patient, and by the time the county gets here, it’s boom, boom, they are in the ambulance.”