There's a new emergency medical service in town, cultured to North Baldwin County's needs by homegrown experts.

Husband and wife duo, John and Melissa Sutton, are at the forefront of the newly founded North Baldwin EMS.

"We just feel like local people can serve the local area better," John said at their July 14 open house at the Sam C. Pruette Fire station No. 2.

On June 1, they took over the North Baldwin region from Medstar and said they hope to use their new equipment and new ideas to provide more extensive service.

"We want to concentrate on providing the best local service we can, because we're from here," he said.

The two trucks on 24-hour call and the two trucks in reserve are "more trucks dedicated to North County," according to Melissa, the administrative half of the team and former Medstar employee who helps oversee 30 staffers.

John runs the operational side, but they both are fully qualified paramedics who, if the other paramedics and emergency medical technicians are out, will jump on with any call.

He said a paramedic will be on every mission, an aspect which makes them unique from some teams, which sometimes only carry EMTs.

A year before June 1, the two said they were dissatisfied with Medstar's level of service with the north side of the county. They said they felt their resources were stretched too thin and the north was being left out.

"This area was so remote from that area of operation," he said. So, they began hatching a plan with the city of Bay Minette to lease the Sam C. Pruette Fire station No. 2 and run the emergency medical services for North Baldwin County themselves. They gave everyone from Medstar the opportunity to work for them and some did.

According to John, Medstar politely stepped aside.

Now, they're running at full speed with up-to-date technology, including an automated cardiopulmonary resuscitation machine that doesn't get tired or miss a beat.

"It's as close to perfect CPR as possible," John said.

And in the next two weeks they hope to have a wireless, 12-point electrocardiogram system setup to beam a patient's vital stats to doctors before arriving at the hospital.

"The sooner we can take them to (where they need to be), the more we can save," he said.

Also, they have switched the area to a completely electronic file system.

"Our philosophy is: if it saves one life it's worth all the money we paid," John added. "Even with the costs of everything, we should have state of the art technology."

They said they also want to help out injured members of the community with what can be overbearing costs, and generate a constant flow of funds for the station. For a $69 yearly fee, they'll waive whatever percentage of the ride the insurance companies won't cover — but he said it's not something he wants to do often.

"You hope you don't have to go and we hope you don't have to go," he added.

He said saving lives is top priority. He claims they've made sure they're working as close as possible with local hospital emergency rooms.

"If we can't work well with them, then neither one of us can provide good service," he said.

The Sam C. Pruette Fire station still functions as a regular fire station as well. On duty at any time are members of the Bay Minette, Daphne, Foley, Gulf Shores or Saraland fire stations.