By Wesley Brown
The Augusta Chronicle
McDUFFIE COUNTY, Ga. — Federal investigators remain tight-lipped about the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s unannounced search last week of McDuffie County’s Emergency Medical Service, but a local official said Tuesday that agents seized no county equipment from the Thomson office.
However, McDuffie County Manager David Crawley would not say if personal effects were removed as evidence.
“They did not take any county equipment and the search did not involve county computers,” he said.
Crawley said Homeland Security agents executed a two-hour search warrant on the McDuffie County EMS on May 6 without warning. Investigators were reported last week going into the EMS office in the rear of the Old University Hospital McDuffie on West Hill Street in Thomson.
“I don’t know the details of the search,” Crawley said. “It was not provided on the warrant, nor was it shared with us in detail when they arrived.”
In a handwritten note, EMS Director Tim Edwards “regretfully” submitted his resignation Monday to the McDuffie County Board of Commissioners. He wrote that it was “effective immediately due to personal reasons.”
Kay Lord, the EMS assistant director, will run the department on an interim basis, Crawley said. McDuffie County EMS is a 24-hour emergency ambulance service providing life support transport in McDuffie and Glascock counties.
No information about the matter was provided by federal authorities.
“Any information related to this investigation will remain under seal until criminal charges, if any, are filed,” said Vincent Picard, spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Southern Region.
Picard directed all future updates to Jim Durham at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Savannah. Durham did not return messages Tuesday.
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©2015 The Augusta Chronicle (Augusta, Ga.)