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By JOYANNA LOVE/ Senior Staff Writer

Clanton could be down to one ambulance service for a while as CARE Ambulance discontinues service in the county on June 30.

Mayor Billy Joe Driver announced that the ambulance company would be discontinuing local service during a Clanton City Council meeting on May 12.

“We are going to have one ambulance service,” Driver said.

CARE Ambulance and RPS have been serving Clanton. Each of the independent providers are dispatched through Chilton County e911 to respond to emergencies.

“Right now, they are rotating calls,” Clanton Fire Chief David Driver said. “They work for the entire county, but we are the only agency that uses both (on a regular basis).”

Each service company has two ambulances.

“There are times right now when there is no ambulance available with four, so two is not going to be enough, in my opinion,” David Driver said.

While there have been some additional ambulance companies looking into providing services in Chilton County, no one has made an official announcement. The fire chief said companies look at the number of calls they would be running in order to determine if it could make enough money to stay in business, while providing patient care and transport.

“It is hard to get another company in here when they may need 10 transports a day, and we may have six or seven,” David Driver said. “I hope that RPS may add another truck here, but I don’t know that.”

Some areas of the county would be impacted more than others if another company does not replace CARE. Jemison is served by a city-owned ambulance though the Fire & Rescue department. Thorsby is mostly served by RPS, but CARE and Jemison have responded to calls in the past when RPS was not available.