ROANOKE, Va. – Wednesday’s snow in southwest Virginia impacted crews at Carilion, who are typically responsible for transporting patients between its hospitals.
"We can see everything from Giles all the way to Tazewell and here in Roanoke and everything in between," Charles Suba, manager of Carilion Transfer and Communications Center, or CTAC, said.
CTAC receives all patient calls, decides where they need to go and coordinates dispatching the resources to get them there. On Wednesday, 10 News got an inside look at the control center.
"The Transfer and Communications Center kind of has eyes on the totality of patient movement in and out of Carilion," Suba said.
Snow makes that movement much more difficult.
"We did have to hold on some of the transports that we had scheduled while the worst of the storm was passing through," patient ground transportation director Craig Bryant said.
Workers at CTAC keep a close eye on the radar and road conditions to see if it's safe for crews to travel routes for patient transport.
"It’s much safer for a patient to be inside a brick and mortar building versus being out on the road in an ambulance. If we can wait a few hours, that's what we'll do and then we'll make the attempt to get that patient to where they need to go," Bryant said.
They're responsible for about 40 ambulances and three life-guard helicopters.
"Life-guard 11 and 12 currently are red, meaning they cannot launch under any circumstances due to the weather conditions in their area; however, those crews are available to do critical care ground transportation," Suba said.
That means in an emergency, it could take crews much longer to get to someone.
"That doesn't mean we can't go get them and use the same type of resources to get them where they need to be it's just going to slow things up a little bit," Suba said.
During big snowstorms with lots of emergency calls, Carilion ambulance crews assist Roanoke Fire-EMS, but they didn't have to do that Wednesday.
CTAC crews are already planning for the potential for more snow this weekend.