One of the oldest, and one of the busiest, rescue units in Spartanburg County is being forced to close, for lack of money. At a meeting of the Westview-Fairforest Fire Commission Tuesday evening, the decision to dissolve Rescue 3 was made. Rescue 3 handles calls for the Westview-Fairforest District, so anyone who lives in that area that has a medical emergency could be potentially affected. Rescue 3 serves an area that goes from roughly Old Anderson Mill Road at I-26, to I-85 and Falling Creek Road, then to US 29. Several thousand people live in the area.
Spartanburg EMS will take over the district. Jimmy Greene says he plans to station one ambulance in the Westview-Fairforest Fire District and to hire six new people.
He says response time will stay the same for residents in the area. "The citizens will really see no difference. There will just be a different ambulance instead of the Westview Fairforest ambulance," he said.
The district has only enough money to make payroll through the end of October. By November 1st, it could be the county’s responsibility to make arrangements for this area to be covered by EMS units from another area, but there are no definite plans right now on what will be done.
Six people were employed with Rescue 3, all will be rehired by the fire department.
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