Madison County, tucked in the mountains of western North Carolina, has no hospital and just three ambulances serving its roughly 22,000 people.
The ambulances frequently travel back and forth to Mission Hospital in Asheville, the largest and most central hospital in the region. Trips can take more than two hours, according to Mark Snelson, director of Madison Medics EMS, the local emergency medical service.
“When we get busy and all three of them are gone, we have no ambulances in our county,” he said…