Recently, without notice, 23 counties found themselves without ambulance service. According to newspaper reports Emergystat Ambulance Service shut down its operations without notice to these counties. Fortunately, Metro Ambulance Service was not one of them. Lauderdale County learned back in 1979 to be wary of private ambulance services. We contracted with a company by the name of MisCorp to do business in Lauderdale County. One morning we discovered that MisCorp had “flown the coop.” Right away, we contacted Naval Air Station and the Mississippi National Guard to please be on standby until we could create our own ambulance service. We named that service Metro Ambulance Service. Metro matured through the months under the management of Willie Hutchinson until Clayton Cobler took over the management of Metro in 1985. After Cobler took over Metro, a private company opened an ambulance service in Meridian by the name of Geiger Ambulance Company. Geiger did quite a bit of advertising and got much support from the advertising firm. The same old argument of private ambulance service in competition with a governmental service surfaced. Geiger appeared to be doing quite well until the management of Geiger was indicted for “Medicare fraud.”

Today, Metro is “self sustaining” with an annual payroll of $1,690,000. It makes approximately 17,000 runs each year and employs 45 full time paramedics and 55 part time employees. Metro has 16 emergency vehicles that are maintained around the clock. I know that the citizens of Lauderdale County are just as proud of our ambulance service as I. Let’s give Clayton Cobler and staff of Metro a “standing ovation” for the awesome service they are rendering and the Board of Supervisors for their continuing support.



Billy Melton

Retired District 1 Supervisor

1876-1991