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History LifeMed was certified by the Indiana EMS Commission
on February 14, 1985 and completed its first patient transport three
days later. Originally located on South Wabash Street in Wabash, a
second base was opened in North Manchester in June at the request of
a local funeral home that had provided ambulance service for several
decades, but wanted to discontinue the service.
At that time North Manchester's other funeral home continued to
offer ambulance service until selling that part of its business to
LifeMed in 1989. By that time LifeMed had secured a contract with
the Wabash County Commissioners for a whopping $12,000 per year.
Also in that year, LifeMed became the county's first Advanced EMT
Provider. The Wabash Fire Department, the county's only other
ambulance service, followed suit shortly thereafter.
At the advanced EMT level LifeMed EMTs could now defibrillate and
start IV's but were still unable to administer medications or
provide other life-saving interventions that were available to
paramedic providers. Discussions with Wabash County Hospital and
area physicians, including R. B. Mernitz, LifeMed's Medical Director
at the time, were begun in 1992 and on February 17, 1993 LifeMed was
certified as Wabash County's first paramedic ambulance service.
LifeMed was the only Paramedic Provider operating in the county for
seven years until the Wabash Fire Department added paramedic service in
2000. In 1995, in response to the needs of many of the area's extended
care facilities, LifeMed added wheelchair and ambulatory
transportation to its list of services offered.
Where We Are Today
We are the sole provider of 911
EMS services for North Manchester and Chester and Pleasant Townships
in Wabash County as well as Silver Lake and Lake, Jackson and
southern Seward Townships in Kosciusko County. We also provide
paramedic intercept services to parts of Seward and Franklin
Townships in Kosciusko County.
In addition to 911 services LifeMed provides non-emergent stretcher,
wheelchair and ambulatory medical transportation and Hospital to Hospital
transfers for several area medical facilities.
Our staff includes Basic and Advanced Emergency Medical
Technicians, Paramedics and Medical Transportation Specialists. These
staff members fill eighteen full-time and about twenty part-time and
as-needed
positions.
On April 1, 2006 LifeMed and Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne entered
into an agreement whereby Lutheran will act as LifeMed's Supervising
Hospital. This coincided with Jeffery Jones, MD, an Emergency
Department physician at Lutheran, assuming the position of LifeMed's
Medical Director.
Dr. Jones announced in January 2010 that he and his family were relocating
to Alabama and that February 28 would be his last day as Medical
Director. His vacancy was filled by B.P. House, MD. Dr. House is
also an Emergency Department physician at Lutheran Hospital and is
the President of Emergency Medicine of Indiana, the group that
provides Emergency Department physicians to Lutheran Health Network.
LifeMed now operates four
ambulances, a paramedic non-transport unit and two wheelchair vans
out of bases in North Manchester and Silver Lake.
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