The M.W. Grand Lodge of Oklahoma, along with Durant Masonic Lodge No. 45, had a cornerstone ceremony Sept. 19 at the Bryan County EMS building that is under construction and will be completed next year.
In August 2022, voters approved $5,560,000 bond to build a new building for EMS.
Dr. Bill Worden, Bryan County EMS medical director, praised the new facility. He said that upon completion, Bryan County EMS will have the nicest ambulance station in Oklahoma.
“I travel the state monthly and there is nowhere that will have a station as nice as this,” Worden said. “I appreciate being invited to this ceremony and I’m looking forward to when this is completed and we can see the finished product. So, kudos to everybody that was involved in this.”
Durant City Manager Pam Polk said this was a great day.
“So, from the City of Durant, thank you,” Polk said. “Thank you for everyone that made this possible and thank you for the service that you all do each and every day.”
Bryan County EMS Director Brian Norton said construction started in January and he expects the building to be finished in the first quarter of 2025.
“That’s where our timeline is with this building and once this building’s completed, we’ll be able to move out of those two buildings and the current offi ce, it will be gone,” Norton said. “It will be taken out and the building that has our ambulances in it right now will get renovated into a training center.”
He said the big thing is that it will provide EMS with more room.
“Currently, we can keep three trucks completely inside the station with the doors down,” Norton said. “The rest of them have to sit under sheds, so they’re still exposed to hot and cold and everything. When this facility is open, we can have 12 trucks inside completely protected from the heat. This will be, like especially in the winter time, it will be heated and stuff like that so the trucks will be ready to roll.”
He said it also will allow EMS to go from having six sleeping spaces to 14.
“So, that means we can add more trucks to the 24-hour shifts and stuff like that so we can provide more coverage to the county,” Norton said.
Presently, EMS has what Norton called three-and-a-half ambulances.
“We run three 24-hour trucks and a 12-hour truck,” he said. “The main reason we only run a 12-hour truck is because we don’t have the beds to sleep everybody and the labor department said we got to have a bed for them to sleep in and we don’t have the room. We remodeled and cut up and did everything we can to get everybody as many beds as we can and we have six beds in the current facility.”
Currently, Bryan County EMS has 24-25 medics on staff and 29 is fully staffed, according to Norton.
He thanked the voters for approving the bond.
“The voters approved this and this is what we told them, that we get them a new facility and so it gives us the opportunity to grow and provide more ambulance coverage for the whole county,” Norton said.
He agreed the county is continuing to grow in population.
“It’s constant,” Norton said. “We run about 6,000 calls a year, just Bryan County EMS. If you include all of the EMS calls which would include Colbert, it’s about 7,000 a year. “Out of police, fire and EMS, of course law enforcement runs the most but then it’s EMS and then fire as far as call volume goes.”
Norton expressed appreciation for the ceremony by the Masons.
“I’ve never been through one of those ceremonies, so I didn’t know what to expect, but I thought it was kind of nice and I just want to throw out, one of the biggest things about the ceremony is our former director Joe (Barrett),” Norton said. “He was the director for 34 years and been on the board since the early 80s. He was on the board, became the director and now, he’s back on the board.
“He’s been in EMS for 40 years, been a Mason for probably at least that amount of time and I kind of felt like this was good for him, too. A little bit of homage … he got us here. Forty years of leadership got us here and we kind of give him a little homage.”
