Residents in eastern Salisbury Township will be notified of St. Luke’s Emergency Transport Service’s annual subscription drive in early October.

Subscriptions will cost the same as last year: $40 per individual; $55 per family; $25 per individual over $65, and $45 per couple over $65.

“Our subscription goal is having 100 percent of the residents participate,” says Kermit Gorr Jr., executive director of St. Luke’s ETS. “It is a cost benefit to the residents. When they subscribe, there is no out-of-pocket expense for 911 ambulance service.”

Previous subscription drives raised about $50,000 from about 15 percent of the residents. This is far short of the $954,000 it costs St. Luke’s to operate one ambulance dedicated to Salisbury Township per year, but the hospital network is very committed to providing the service, said Gorr.

Reporting to Salisbury commissioners during a recent board meeting, Gorr noted that the ETS had 343 calls last year, with an average response time of eight minutes. Most common were calls for falls by people aged 50 to 70.

Salisbury police recently purchased quick response rescue equipment to help save lives in the early minutes of an emergency, but not to transport patients. Working together, police and ambulance crews helped save the lives of three or four heart attack victims last year.

St. Luke’s ETS has been serving the township since 2009, after Eastern Salisbury Fire Department’s ambulance corps ceased due to financial and manpower shortages. Cetronia and Emmaus ambulances serve western Salisbury Township.