Garner EMS merges with nonprofit

The move comes about 18 months after Wake County took over the paramedic operations of the former Garner EMS & Rescue and a year after the Garner Volunteer Fire Department assumed rescue operations, leaving Garner Rescue to provide non-emergency medical transport services.

Also, former EMS Chief Bill Frederick pleaded guilty last December to assaulting a part-time employee.

David Pease, one of the founding members of Garner EMS & Rescue in 1975, said it has been difficult to see what has happened to the organization in recent years.

"It tears into your heat," Pease said.

The agency is now merging with Rescue Extrication Delivery Specialists, or REDS Team. The nonprofit helps with searches and at disaster scenes.

"We're closing one chapter in a book, and we're opening a new chapter," Garner Rescue Squad Board Vice-Chairwoman Linda Clayton said.

Pease is chief of the REDS Team.

"The top priority is the more people we have trained to respond, the better response we can give," he said.

Garner Rescue Squad's 20 volunteers will now have the opportunity to join the REDS Team.

Although the Garner EMS & Rescue will no longer be around, founders and board members said they hope its name is remembered for all the right reasons.

"You want people to remember the good things – what the department did over the years and the good that it did," Pease said.