NATCHEZ — Adams County supervisors instructed their attorney Monday to consider an ordinance creating a time frame in which ambulance operators should respond to county emergency calls.

The request came after Supervisor David Carter said he learned of an instance over the weekend in which someone had to wait 45 minutes for an ambulance to arrive.

“There is no reason for somebody to have to wait 30 minutes for an ambulance,” he said. “We have two providers (in Adams County).”

American Medical Response and Metro Ambulance both serve Adams County. Board attorney Scott Slover said the county does not restrict how many ambulance services can operate within its boundaries, though it does set some broad guidelines they must meet.

The ambulance companies rotate calls, Carter said.

“If they are in Franklin County, we don’t need to wait for them to come from Franklin County when somebody else is sitting here,” he said.

Adams County Emergency Management Director Robert Bradford said the companies work together to keep response times short, but the weekend incident happened because the closest ambulance broke down.

Even if a company has additional ambulances, the personnel operating them are required to have certain licenses, Bradford said. The issue was personnel available, not vehicles.

Bradford said the Emergency 911 board and fire department have spoken about getting an ambulance back at the fire department.

Supervisors President Darryl Grennell said the board has looked at adopting an ordinance requiring a response time for ambulance operators in the past, but operators have said they need more personnel to make that happen, which would require some kind of subsidy.

“It takes the county participating in this process, helping to underwrite it,” he said.

“We have looked at this as a board before, but the costs were just astronomical.”

Supervisor Mike Lazarus said he hated to be put in a position where the county might be putting money toward something done by a for-profit business.

“The ambulance people are making money,” he said. “Of course they are going to tell us, ‘We can’t do that if y’all don’t subsidize us.’”

Slover said response time, even if it costs money, is important.

“(Ambulance service) is used more than fire (service),” he said.

Carter said the response over the weekend was also slowed because the initial call to 911 wouldn’t go through.

“It was just click-click-click,” he said.

Emergency 911 Board Member Everard Baker said the board actually discussed response time at its last meeting, and the board is waiting to hear back from the ambulance services. Baker said when members of the 911 board hears something back, they will bring it to the supervisors.