Location and Service Area

Highland Ambulance EMS, Inc. is a six town, rural, Regional ambulance service with a primary service area of 159 square miles and a population of 7,916 year round residents or 50 persons per square mile. Most roads are secondary in nature with many unimproved dirt roads. The area includes two state parks with camping facilities, several youth camps, and a substantial summer resident population that increases the total population served by approximately 50%. The Cummington fairgrounds attracts crowds of up to 30,000 per day during the annual 4-day agricultural fair. Other events in the area draw crowds up to 5,000 people. Route 9, the major east-west corridor in this section of Massachusetts, runs through three of the towns. Route 9 is a winding, hilly road that is particularly hazardous in winter conditions. The average traffic volume is 5,000 cars/trucks daily. The truck traffic transports any number of unknown hazardous materials.

Highland provides mutual aid and Advanced Life Support Paramedic (ALS) level intercept services to the city of Northampton and 22 surrounding rural towns. The rural towns cover 607 square miles with a combined population of 32,336 or about 53 persons per square mile. None of the Fire departments in these rural towns has an ALS ambulance service attached to them. The primary service in these rural towns is only by BLS ambulance services. Highland is the only ambulance service located in the hill towns of western Massachusetts that provides ALS response. The next closest ALS ambulance services are located in metropolitan areas with travel times of 45 to 90 minutes or more, depending on weather, road conditions, and availability to reach Highland’s service area.

All but one of the communities in our primary and mutual aid service areas are rural, mountainous, sparsely populated communities with poor road systems, snow and ice conditions in the winter, and mud conditions on hundreds of miles of dirt roads in the spring. The isolated nature of these communities and the poor road conditions can make the transport times from the scene to the nearest hospital perilously long; 45 minutes to 1½ hours. For patients in need of critical advanced life support services, delivering Advanced Life Support services to these patients in the field on all calls means the difference between life and death.

Highland also provides mutual aid assistance for the City of Northampton; an area of 34 square miles and a population of 29,289 or 850 persons per square mile. Northampton sits on the Interstate I-91 corridor, is home to Smith College, a U.S. Veterans Hospital, and is adjacent to Amherst, home to the University of Massachusetts, a 45,000-student campus, and Amherst College with 1600 students. In the event that a major disaster occurred at any of these sites, Northampton and Amherst’s resources would be fully committed to the disaster. Highland’s role would be to provide primary ambulance coverage to these communities.

 

56 Main Street, Goshen, MA 01032 Phone (413) 268-7272