Nebraska Center for Rural Health Research

Authors: Angella Bowman, Russ Wetzel, Jessica Sandmeier, and Dan Fried

The purpose of this report is to describe Emergency Medical Services (EMS) accessibility to Nebraska state parks. There are over 9 million visits made to Nebraska's 85 state parks annually. This large, and for the most part seasonal, influx of visitors to park areas can greatly increase the relative population of a community for short periods of time. These large, short-term, increases in local populations pose many challenges for the local public health and safety networks. This report describes the characteristics of state parks and EMS systems. Data presented include cause of injury data from the Nebraska Ambulance Rescue Service Information System, maps showing the relative location of EMS providers and personnel with respect to parks and population distributions, and a description of the EMS communication system available to state park locations.

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