About Us

The Pulaski County Ambulance District provides emergency medical services, transfers, special coverage’s, and other services for the citizens of the ambulance district. The service has four ambulance bases: the main office in Waynesville, a base in Crocker, Richland, and Laquey, Missouri. The bases are staffed with a paramedic and an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) on each ambulance. Each base has one first out ambulance, except the Waynesville base has two first out ambulances because of the heavy call volume in the Waynesville-St. Robert area.

The district responds to a little over 5000 patients each year. Most of these patients are transported to the Phelps County Regional Medical Center in Rolla, General Leonard Wood Army Community Hospital, on Fort Leonard Wood, Mercy-Lebanon Hospital in Lebanon, and Lake Regional Hospital in Osage Beach.

PCAD provides mutual aid response for the Fort Leonard Wood, Dixon, Phelps County, and Mercy’s ambulance services.

Special Coverage: PCAD provides standby coverage for police and fire departments several times per year. This is a service to provide emergency care and preventative medical care for firefighters; and emergency care for police and/or citizens.

Sports: PCAD provides ambulance coverage to school sports events and other events such as graduations.

Community Events: PCAD provides ambulance coverage at fairs, truck and tractor pulls, rodeos, Railroad Days, Old Settler’s Day, and many others throughout the year.

Transfers: Frequently a patient needs to be transported to a facility for special services, surgeons, or specialty physicians. PCAD provides these transfers as much as possible. The most frequent long distance transport requested is the Springfield hospitals, followed by Columbia, and St. Louis.

Prevention: The district has the philosophy that it is better to prevent an emergency then to respond to one. Therefore, PCAD provides various safety and health services to the community. Citizens are welcome to stop at one of the ambulance bases for blood pressure, blood sugar, or other vital signs checks.

History of Pulaski County Ambulance District

In 1987 the people of Pulaski County voted in the Pulaski County Ambulance District. The former Pulaski County Memorial Hospital (PCMH), that had provided ambulance service since 1973, closed its doors forever. The closure of the county hospital also resulted in the loss of the Pulaski County ambulance service.

Local physician Dr. Edward Jenkins, Nurse Candy Winkler, and local attorney Tyce Smith led a citizens group to petition the citizens to pass a tax and establish an ambulance district. The first board of directors was appointed. The founding board members were: Keith Pritchard, Larry Salveter, Floyd “Cotton” Barlow, Richard “Dick” Ernst, Floyd Mooney, and Darold Wieners. The board appointed Dr. Edward Jenkins as the district’s medical director, Tyce Smith as attorney, and Paramedic Gary Carmack as the administrator.

The original district voted in was Waynesville, St.Robert, Hooker (Devils Elbow area), Big Piney, Laquey, Swedeborg, and Crocker areas. To establish boundaries for ambulance district Missouri government often uses school districts to set the district. This included the Waynesville, Crocker, Swedeborg, and Laquey school districts. The cities of Dixon and Richland elected to maintain their own separate ambulance services.

Later, in 1994 the Breech Ambulance Service of Lebanon took their ambulance out of Richland because of financial concerns. The citizens then voted to place the Richland School District in the PCAD. The Richland School District goes into some of Camden and Laclede counties. This is why PCAD covers some parts of Camden and Laclede Counties. Currently, PCAD is the ambulance service for all of Pulaski County; except the Dixon School District, which remains Dixon Ambulance District, and Fort Leonard Wood. However, PCAD does provide mutual aid to both Dixon and Fort Leonard Wood. The district covers approximately 500 square miles.

The district originally responded out of a house in Waynesville and the old fire station in Crocker. As time went on PCAD rented the basement of the Senior Citizens Center in Waynesville. As years went by the district was able to build ambulance bases in Waynesville, Crocker, Richland, and recently in Laquey.