Honesdale is serving Northern Pike

By DAVID HULSE

LACKAWAXEN — Since the cancellation of Wayne Memorial Hospital’s “501” advanced life support (ALS) emergency medical services unit, the Honesdale Volunteer Ambulance Corps has taken responsibility for its predecessor, which served northern Pike County.

Honesdale Ambulance Executive Director Sharon Gumpper told the Lackawaxen Township Supervisors on June 19 that Honesdale wants to go further and station a “24/7” unit in Lackawaxen.

Most local ambulance corps provide basic life support (BLS) services, but certain types of calls often require services only offered by paramedics on ALS units. Most ALS units are supplemented with paid staff.

The ALS unit, to be stationed at the Greeley garage for the Lackawaxen Volunteer Ambulance Service, would be staffed by a combination of Honesdale and Lackawaxen ambulance personnel.

The catch is the cost. The new sub-station would cost $267,500, in addition to Honesdale’s current $430,000 budget. That budget already has a $120,000 shortfall.

Gumpper said she did not come to directly solicit funding from the township. “This was just a warmer-upper,” she said later.

Pike County has recently started its own ALS service, which is serving southern portions of the county, “but we’re just getting started,” said Mary Lou Corbette of Pike ALS.

In other business at last Wednesday’s meeting, the supervisors, saying they were given few options with another public utility project similar to the controversial Tennesseee Gas Pipeline project, reluctantly approved a conditional zoning use permit allowing construction of a 500,000 gallon, 125’ high, water storage tank at Woodloch Pines. They also heard resident Mark Van Acker; call on the township to find some means to clean up abandoned and un-maintained, “condemnable” buildings in the township, both in Greeley and in the hamlet of Lackawaxen.

The Supervisors several years ago stirred some controversy with a similar nuisance and unsafe buildings proposal. After several attempts to amend it, the earlier legislation was dropped.

Van Acker’s new call did not go unanswered. Robert McDivitt, an opponent of the earlier plan warned the supervisors to “look at how many people are here complainjing.”