The Ryan Township ambulance is back in Rush Township.

After a two and a half-hour meeting Thursday night, the Rush Township Supervisors reversed their July decision to replace the Ryan Township ambulance to cover the western section of the township — the villages of Grier City, Barnesville and Quakake — with the Tamaqua ambulance, which has paid staff on duty.

Supervisor Shawn Gilbert said the July decision was based on the recommendation of Supervisor George Gerhard, an emergency services volunteer.

The vote to change back was 2-1, with Gerhard the no vote. Gerhard said statistics he obtained from the Schuylkill County Communications Center showed Tamaqua — which also covers the Hometown section of the township — responded faster to the western end of the county.

“I don’t think the system was broken,” Gilbert said. “I cannot believe you (Gerhard) want to eliminate a volunteer service from the coverage area. We (Gilbert and Supervisor Robert Leipensperger) relied on you (Gerhard).”

Gerhard insisted the other two supervisors did not look at the data he obtained from the Schuylkill County Communications Center.

Chris Kessler, the director of the Communications Center, showed a colorized map which indicated the various sections of the township covered by the various ambulance services.

Kessler said each ambulance service is timed in their response to each area. The unit which provides the fastest time to a certain area is assigned to that area.

Each service works together with other services to handle calls in the event a service assigned to a certain area is tied up on a call. The fastest service is assigned to each area, followed by the next fastest, and so on, to back each other up.

“There is an massive emergency services crisis not only in this area, but across the country,” Kessler said. “Volunteerism is dying. It is becoming a business.”

At the meeting, the supervisors interviewed officials from the McAdoo ambulance, the Ryan Township ambulance, the Tamaqua ambulance, the Medic 11 paramedic unit from Hazleton, and the Lehighton ambulance, which provides a paid paramedic unit to the Tamaqua ambulance.

Representatives of each service provided information on the number of volunteer Emergency Medical Technicians, drivers, and ambulance vehicles each had. The paid services indicated how many paramedics they had.

Michael Mistishen, from the Ryan Township ambulance, said his unit also provides bariatric service, which is a specialty in handling large patients.

Gilbert thanked each volunteer service for their work in providing lifesaving services to township residents.