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Watauga County to take over emergency medical services

Image is an aerial view of Boone
Courtesy of Appalachian State University
Aerial view of Appalachian State University in Boone.

Watauga is transitioning to a county-run EMS model after agreeing to purchase the assets of Watauga Medics, Inc.

At its commissioners meeting last week, the Board approved buying Watagua Medics for $1.7 million. $700,000 of that pays for its medic base.

Braxton Eggers, chairman of the Watauga Board, says the move gives the county more control over EMS. He says it also brings Watuaga in line with most other North Carolina counties that run their own service.

“We'll be looking to get a director in place, and then onboarding the medics that want to come over and work with the county, and should have everything in place by the end of the year,” he says.

Eggers adds that he expects the county to expand these emergency medical services in the coming years to provide better coverage.

Paul Garber is a Winston-Salem native and an award-winning reporter who began his journalism career with an internship at The High Point Enterprise in 1993. He has previously worked at The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News and Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal, where he was the newspaper's first full-time multimedia reporter. He won the statewide Media and the Law award in 2000 and has also been recognized for his business, investigative and multimedia reporting. Paul earned a BA from Wake Forest University and has a Master's of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Master's of Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Lewisville.

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