By Teresa McMinn
Cumberland Times-News
LONACONING, Md. — Renovation of the ambulance station in Lonaconing by Allegany County work crews is nearly complete.
For decades, volunteers ran the Georges Creek Ambulance Service, but in recent years paid employees were needed to supplement staffing gaps.
| EARLIER: Md. county officials plan takeover of struggling ambulance service
Ultimately, the service could no longer afford to function, so its remaining members reached out to Allegany County officials for help.
Earlier this year, the county agreed to take over the service, which included a building, three ambulances, medical equipment, supplies, furniture and appliances.
“It was a very sorrowful moment for several of their original members that volunteered at the station until the very end,” said Roger Bennett, director of the county’s department of emergency services.
Today, county maintenance workers have completed roughly 90% of work needed for the structure to meet building code requirements, he said.
Renovations included heating, ventilation and air conditioning, structural stability and new bunk rooms.
DES employees helped paint the building, replace ceiling tiles and clean the facility.
“All the radios are in place,” Bennett said.
“The only remaining item for completion is the sprinkler system,” he said, adding that installation of the system is underway.
The project, which cost roughy $100,000, was funded by Allegany County.
Although DES crews at the site have responded to some emergency calls, the station is set to officially open at the end of January.
“The station will house one staffed ambulance, which will have a crew of one paramedic and one EMT,” Bennett said.
“The crews will be on duty 24/7,” he said. “To cover that shift rotation, the county will have eight employees stationed there.”
Bennett said overall DES staffing levels, since October 2024, will remain the same.
“The county is looking forward to placing another staffed ambulance and crew in the Georges Creek area,” he said.
In January 2024, Georges Creek Ambulance Service covered Lonaconing, Midland and a small section of Garrett County with a first-due area that included two schools, a nursing home, apartment buildings and a primarily older adult population.
The following August, the ambulance service was too short-staffed to respond to emergency calls.
“We’re kind of in limbo,” the organization’s vice president, Gerald Cook, said at that time.
The station’s temporary closing that summer marked the first time in 47 years that the community was without ambulance service,” Lonaconing Mayor Jack Coburn said in a December 2024 letter to area residents.
“Although we are provided service from a different area, it is not always a sufficient time frame, as we all know time is of the essence when it comes to someone’s life,” he said.
The letter detailed treacherous road conditions on state Route 36 during winter months that could mean an ambulance from Frostburg or LaVale might take significant time to reach someone in Lonaconing.
“Many patients do not have 45 minutes to wait to be transported to UPMC,” it stated.
County officials via press release last year said that when they gained access to the ambulance building, “several major structural and operational problems” were identified.
While the station was shut down, emergency medical coverage for the Lonaconing area included ambulance teams from Frostburg and Tri-Towns companies.
© 2025 the Cumberland Times News (Cumberland, Md.).
Visit times-news.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
