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Anne Arundel County officials have until June 1 to assess the effects of a decision by Fort Meade to drastically reduce its 24-hour emergency services and instead rely on paramedics from surrounding counties, now that the Army has postponed the effective date until then. Originally scheduled to take effect tomorrow, the plan was put on hold last week - a decision that left critics hopeful that the Army will find another way to cut costs. "I think it [the delay] is a good move," said James Goetz, Fort Meade EMS spokesman.

Harford County's fire and EMS service is a mess. As one Old-Timer used to say, "Rome wasn't built in a day. " Nor was the mess that fire and EMS service has become. Let's get this straight before we go any further: This is not an attack on the men and women who have dedicated their lives to helping their fellow Harford County residents at their times of greatest need. The service they continue to provide in the face of daunting challenges is terrific. Some of our colleagues, family members, friends and neighbors are and have been volunteers in the fire and EMS service.

Less than a month into his new job as Anne Arundel County fire chief, Roger C. Simonds has changed the name of his department from the county EMS/Fire/Rescue back to the more conventional Fire Department.The switch reverses a change made by former Chief Stephen D. Halford two years ago and marks an apparent shift in thinking for Simonds, who led a committee that recommended the earlier name change.The fire transition team headed by Simonds was the impetus for the name shuffle, according to fire spokesman John Scholz.

The Laurel Volunteer Fire Department will hold its second annual EMS Open House on Saturday, May 18 from noon to 3 p.m. at the fire station, 7411 Cherry Lane. Activities include meeting Laurel's licensed emergency medical technicians, blood pressure screening and learning about injury prevention. Visitors can also take an ambulance tour. The Laurel Volunteer Fire Department was formed four years after an 1898 fire on Main Street destroyed 12 buildings, including the Presbyterian Church.

THINK OF IT as an insurance policy. The extra $8 you pay on your vehicle registration buys one of the nation's best statewide emergency medical systems in case you, a loved one or a friend is badly injured in an accident. That insurance policy, though, is about to lapse. The money raised from this surcharge on Maryland cars and trucks - about $36 million -isn't enough any longer to support a comprehensive emergency medical services network. Unless the General Assembly finds additional funds, there will be a 15-percent cutback in the statewide EMS system, which includes everything from MedEvac helicopters, paramedics, fire and rescue equipment and the renowned Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore.

ANNAPOLIS -- The state agency that provides radio communications and training for medics in Maryland's nationally renowned shock-trauma system must slash its budget by nearly two-thirds by next July.Known as the Emergency Medical Services System, the agency is the electronic and human support structure for the widely copied Maryland procedure for getting gravely injured people to hospitals within the so-called golden hour -- when their lives can still be saved.The cuts in the EMS System came to light this week two days after two medevac helicopter bases were closed entirely and all medevac services were suspended between 3 a.m. and 7 a.m. as part of efforts to reduce state spending by $450 million this fiscal year.

A Bel Air man was seriously injured in a single car accident in Joppa Sunday afternoon, firefighters and EMS personnel at the scene said. The accident occurred around 1:30 p.m. in the 3600 block of Clayton Road near Kates Lane, according to a Harford County Sheriff's Office accident report. Firefighters and EMS personnel said they arrived to find a 2008 Honda that had overturned, trapping the adult male driver, who was identified in the subsequent accident report as Mark Stephen Vananzo, 50, of Shoreham Court in Bel Air. The report states the vehicle overturned "several times.

The Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems recognized two Howard County residents yesterday for their work in fire and rescue services.MIEMSS recognized 27 emergency rescue personnel during the ceremony in Baltimore.Battalion Chief Dan Merson received the EMS Provider of the Year award for his work as Howard's EMS program manager.Liz Uhlman-Berg, a critical-care registered nurse at Johns Hopkins Hospital, received the Quality in EMS award for her work in the state's EMS. She lives in Elkridge.

Facing deep budget cuts that threaten its survival, Maryland's nationally renowned Emergency Medical Services System is circulating petitions statewide to gain support for an earmarked tax to support the shock trauma agency.The petitions ask Marylanders to back a $10 tax for the system, along with other emergency and rescue services, that could generate all or part of the cost. A 10-cent surtax on monthly gas and electric bills, on vehicle license tags, on beverages and on gasoline are among the ways considered by the system's advisory council yesterday to impose a designated tax.After budget cuts of 20 percent over the past year, the EMS system is faced with a further cut of 60 percent in the next fiscal year, as part of cuts at the University of Maryland at Baltimore, where it is located.

The county deployed police and EMS/Fire/Rescue patrols to Crofton yesterday to help residents of more than 350 homes who lost telephone service when a contractor accidentally cut a phone line Wednesday evening.The contractor, apparently digging a waterline for the county, cut the phone line at about 6 p.m. Wednesday, said Sandra Arnette, a spokeswoman for Bell Atlantic-Maryland.She said Bell Atlantic crews began trying to restore phone service almost immediately, but yesterday evening, most of the affected homes remained without dial tones.

An Aberdeen EMS crew locked itself in its ambulance Tuesday night when it arrived at a call in Perryman and encountered a large fight. The ambulance was responding for a call of a sick woman in the 400 block of Daugherty Lane around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, according to Richard Gardiner of the Harford County Volunteer Fire & EMS Association and Edward Hopkins, spokesman for the Harford County Sheriff's Office. When they arrived, the EMS crew reported people were fighting in the road and they "locked themselves in the unit for their own safety," Gardiner said.

Let me begin this column with an apology. Once a week, I pick an important issue and offer my reasoned analysis, based on the facts, of what it all means and how we should react. But there are times when the intellect fails and the heart and gut take over. And this is one of them. In the spring of 1968, I walked into the McCarthy for President office in San Francisco and signed up as a volunteer. That was my first taste of politics, and I've been involved in politics ever since, both as practitioner and observer.

Inside a classroom at Howard Community College's new health sciences building are computerized mannequin patients, a replica ambulance and other devices that place students in simulated life-and-death situations. The facilities are part of the school's emergency medical service/paramedic program, which trains students to respond to the situations they'll face on emergency calls. But for Cory Boone and Nick Frazier, there's nothing like the real thing. They would know. Early this year, the Ellicott City residents, both students in the program, applied the skills they learned in class and while volunteering with the Howard County Department of Fire and Rescue to assist victims of cardiac arrest.

The No. 1 Maryland women have a wealth of players who can finish, and Alex Aust knows how to set them up perfectly. The senior attacker has dished out 17 assists to seven different players in the last three games. In Tuesday's 17-10 win over UMBC, she set a Terps single-game record with seven assists, breaking the mark held by seven different players including herself. Terps coach Cathy Reese said Aust became especially adept at feeding from behind the cage last season when she dished out 52 assists, third on Maryland's all-time single-season chart behind Jen Adams' 60 in 2001 and 55 in 2000.

The following is the complete text of Harford County Executive David Craig's 2013 State of the County Address delivered at the Harford County Council legislative session on Tuesday, Feb. 5: "Where there is no vision, the people perish", so it is written in Proverbs 29: 18. This statement is as true today as it was when it was written centuries ago. Good evening, President Boniface and members of the Harford County Council. It is my pleasure to come before you tonight to present to you and the people of Harford County, the State of the County.

The owners of Jewish-style delicatessens in San Francisco and Baltimore have placed a friendly wager on the Super Bowl game. The losing deli will donate $500 to a charity of choice in the winning team's city. The bet between Miller's East Coast Delicatessen in San Francisco and Attman's Deli in Baltimore was the idea of Robby Morgenstern of Miller's, who made, and won, a similar bet with a Detroit deli owner on the outcome of the 2012 World Series. The Baltimore deli's owner, Marc Attman, accepted the bet with Miller's.

Jenkins will be missedWith his retirement Dec. 31, Ray Jenkins, editor of the editorial pages of The Evening Sun, ended his 40 years o watching, evaluating and reporting on events of our time. I would like to make some observations as a reader of his column, one who in many cases gained insight into controversial events of our time.Mr. Jenkins came to The Evening Sun from the South - where h had the opportunity to observe first-hand the changes in civil rights, economics and cultural diversity.

A groundbreaking ceremony will be held Saturday morning for a new fire station being built at the corner of Route 924 and Patterson Mill Road in the Emmorton community midway between Bel Air and Abingdon. The Bel Air Substation at Patterson Mill, as the facility will be known, will be operated by the Bel Air Volunteer Fire Company and is the first fire facility in Harford County to be constructed solely with funding from the county government, Bob Thomas, manager of communications for the county, said Friday.

For many years, the officers of the various private volunteer fire and ambulance companies that provide a valuable public service to Harford County have strenuously resisted any financial or strategic oversight by the Harford County government. This is not to say that the volunteer companies are somehow rogue with regard to the very high level of services they provide. The ambulance service is under the strict supervision of the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems, and the fire side of the volunteer companies is under similar strict training regimens for the people who respond to calls.

Sometime this year, the BWI Marshall Airport fire and rescue department will begin billing people for ambulance rides to the hospital. The move, dictated by the General Assembly last year, follows a statewide trend to try to recover some emergency medical costs from insurance companies. Montgomery County, the state's most populous jurisdiction, began charging Jan. 1. "It's become pretty standard in the aviation industry and in EMS in general," said Paul Wiedefeld, the airport's executive director.