Life and death: a matter of minutes

Sanders County 911 Board assesses dispatch communication issues between Lake and Sanders Counties

THOMPSON FALLS – The Sanders County 911 board is working on a communication issue between Lake County and Sanders County.

The issue is between dispatch calls just over the Lake County line near Hot Springs. Hot Springs ambulance does not receive the call in the area. Calls are directed to either Ronan or Polson. The lack of communication has the potential to be life threatening to those in need of assistance along the border.

“When you call 911 on your phone, it knows exactly where you are,” Hot Springs Mayor Randy Woods said. “When you are just over the border in Lake County, they get the call and we don’t. It could take them 40 minutes to respond whereas it would take us eight minutes.”

The lack of communication between counties is potentially leaving car accident victims stranded, or even worse those in need of immediate medical attention left without care for longer periods of time.

“It’s a communication issue,” Woods said. “There is no way of us knowing there was a call in Lake County because they do not call us.”

The systems between the two counties are not synced up for immediate communication. For most of Sanders County, it is not an issue, but for the region that borders Hot Springs and their coverage area on the Flathead Reservation it is.

“If you are on a road in Lake County just across the border your call goes to either Polson or Ronan depending on where you are at,” Woods said. “That is 35 miles of road they are going to have to drive on to come get you, whereas we are five miles. That has been a real big hang up for Lake County.”

Woods feels Lake County has been ignoring his request to have communications set up between the two entities. Woods thinks Hot Springs low population plays a major role in the how 911 callers are handled. He said Lake County looks over at Hot Springs and thinks since there are only a few houses, there are not enough people who matter. He said they feel as long as someone gets to the call eventually there is not a problem

“I’ve talked and talked to them,” Woods said. “I am told it’s a commissioners issue or some other excuse.”

Woods said it delays care for people and sometimes, the delay could mean life or death for the patient.

Hot Springs and their coverage area in Sanders County are the only people who have faced this issue. No other town or ambulance service has dealt with living on a border between counties. Woods blames Hot Springs’ location on the county line for the poor communication between counties.

“Plains, Thompson Falls, no one else has the problem,” Woods said. “They don’t seem to care about the problem. No one seems to know how to fix this problem.”

A major problem with the system lies in the Emergency Operations Plan for Sanders County. Woods thinks the county has wasted a lot of money and throughout the plan it talks about communication.

“At the meeting I asked the commissioners to turn to the chapter on communication,” Woods said. “It does not exist, there is nothing of communication in the Emergency Operations Plan.”

Woods said there is no plan in place to direct calls when multiple ambulances in an area are needed. There are currently no two-way streets when communicating 911 calls throughout Sanders County.

Woods hopes the reestablishment of the 911 board will help fix these communication issues and make Sanders County response times better.