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Pamplin Volunteer Fire Department and EMS Inc. has discontinued its EMS transport services more than two-and-a-half months earlier than originally announced.

In a Sept. 17 press release, the department stated it would be discontinuing its emergency medical service (EMS) transport offering, effective Jan. 1, 2021.

However, this timetable did not hold.

“The timeline was abruptly moved up to discontinue as of Oct. 12,” Pamplin EMS Captain Elijah Harrison said in an email Thursday, Oct. 22. “The decision came after a series of events that left us no choice but to terminate immediately.”

When asked if he was able to share any more details on this series of events that led to the abrupt move, Harrison stated he was not willing to release any information on that.

In late September, Harrison confirmed that the plan, at that point, was to discontinue not just Pamplin’s emergency transport service but its EMS program entirely while maintaining the hope that in the near or immediate future the department could provide first responder care on scene without the transport service.

“Although first responder is still a hope,” Harrison stated Thursday, “now we have terminated our EMS license until further notice.”

Harrison shared some details in late September about why the Pamplin EMS transport service was ending.

“Due to reasons beyond our control, the service is no longer maintainable and will be terminated,” he said. “The difficult decision came after all efforts were exhausted to keep (Pamplin-based) ambulance service available in the Pamplin area.”

He said the decision was at least partly based on the growing cost of being an EMS transport service.

“We got into where it wasn’t financially responsible for us to use donations to continue our EMS transport agency,” he said. “The cost of being an EMS transport was constantly growing faster than our income was.”

Appomattox County Rescue Squad, Prince Edward Volunteer Rescue Squad and Charlotte County Volunteer Rescue Squad have returned as the agencies providing ambulance services to Pamplin, as it was prior to August 2007, Harrison said.