Until the 1940's much of emergency medical car and transport in Lycoming County was rendered by local funeral homes which had vehicles capable of carrying patients in a horizontal manner. These mortuary based ambulances included C.M. Zellers in Montgomery, Crouse's in Williamsport, McCarty/Thomas in Hughesville, Kelchner's of Jersey Shore and Knight's Funeral
Crouse's Funeral Home operated a private ambulance service in the 1940's ; with their first ambulance was a 1946 Studabacker. This service continued until the 1950's when retired motorcycle police officer Raymond E. Bohartz began his private ambulance service housed on High Street in Williamsport.
Although few early records exit of these services. Knight's Funeral Home is believed to have been the only ambulance in the city of Williamsport during the 1936 flood. While Knight's initially provided ambulance transport as a public service, at the time this service ended patients were charged $4 per mile.
Fire Departments Get Ambulances
The first fire department based ambulance service in Lycoming County was est. 1937 by the Williamsport Bureau of Fire which was the contract for ambulance service in the City of Williamsport until 1985 when the contract was awarded to the Williamsport Hospital and Medical Center.
Old Lycoming Township History
Prior to the Old Lycoming Township Volunteer Fire Company expanding its service by adding an ambulance, calls were handled by Bohart's Private Ambulance Service of Williamsport and Knight's Funeral Home. In 1953 Old Lycoming took delivery of it's first ambulance , a 1941 Cadillac that was purchased for the company by Confair Bottling Company. By the mid-1960's Old Lycoming was operating two Cadillac ambulance and became one of the first Lycoming County services to be certified under the Department of Health Voluntary Ambulance Certification (VASC). Their first new ambulance was purchased in 1977, a modular Type 1 GMC.
1953 Old Lycoming took delivery of it's first ambulance a1941 Cadillac.
1984 WAASC was formed.
Included: First Ward Fire Company (South Williamsport), Duboistown Station 8, Old Lycoming , and Williamsport Hospital. Routines were run a rotating basis between the three station; when there was an over flow of routines at the hospital. Also weekends and nights, when the hospital did not have a paid ambulance staff available.
1994 The decision was made to hire paid EMT (Emergency Medical Technicians) to run the ambulance, 7 days a week from 6:30 am- 10:30pm to provide emergency medical and routine services. Until that time, station 14 had a difficult time getting enough EMT volunteers to respond to calls.
2002 Paid weekend staff was dropped.
June 27, 2007 WASS became SREMS (Susquehanna Regional Emergency Medical Service).
Paramedics were stationed on ambulances no longer placed on just squad units (a type of vehicle unable to transport patients). The ambulance held one EMT and one Paramedic before it had two EMTs. For more information about Emergency Medical Services in Lycoming County Click Here.
-- Medic 91Paramedic Platoon Chief stationed at the ER, Williamsport hospital
--Medic 2-91 holds one EMT and one Paramedic, runs out of station 30 in Muncy
-- Medic 1-91 has two EMTS and runs out of Divine Hospital
-- A Medic unit runs our of Station 14 with one Paramedic and one EMT
Source: The History of EMS in Lycoming County (all Lycoming county historical information included in this publication was submitted by the ambulance services and EMS agencies.)
