By Evan Butow
Billings Gazette
YELLOWSTONE COUNTY, Mont. — Come summer, Intermountain Health will begin to provide 24/7 EMS coverage to wide swathes of rural eastern Yellowstone County thanks to a new partnership between the health agency, Yellowstone county and the Worden and Shepherd Fire districts.
“This agreement is great news,” Yellowstone County Commissioner Mike Waters said. “We’re thankful to Intermountain Health and we’re very happy residents of eastern Yellowstone County will be getting high-quality EMS services, filling a gap in that part of our county.”
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Waters and Clinical EMS Manager at Intermountain Health Tim Matthews both credited County Director of Emergency Services Derek Yeager as instrumental in helping the agreement come together.
“Derek realized this was a perfect chance for us to be a part of this community,” Matthews said.
Emergency service gaps have long been an issue for residents of rural communities in the eastern part of Yellowstone County such as Huntley, Worden and Ballantine.
The Worden Fire Department operated a volunteer-run ambulance service for many years, but Worden Fire Chief Lance Taylor said maintaining the service in recent years became difficult due to a sharp drop in volunteers.
“Our volunteerism is at an all-time-low,” he said. “I don’t know the exact number, but we lost almost 50% of our volunteers from 2014 to 2024 and we just don’t have those new volunteers coming in yet. We’ve had to drop more and more calls because we just don’t have the people available.”
Taylor estimated ambulance services would be almost 10-15 minutes quicker following Intermountain launch and said he was grateful they were now providing ambulance services within his fire district.
Intermountain will base its new services out of the Huntley Fire Station, in partnership with the Worden Fire District, and expects its service to be ready by July 1.
To staff and operate the new service, Intermountain will purchase two ambulances from the Worden fire district and hire five new paramedics and five new EMTs.
“We saw a need and we’re trying to add more resources to the community,” Matthews said. “We want the community to know if they call 911 someone is coming. If you can’t make it to the hospital, we’ll come to you.”
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