Emergency Medical Services – EMS

Burke County Emergency Medical Services 911 Response

Burke County EMS provides pre-hospital medical services to the 89,000 citizens and visitors of Burke County. Burke County EMS is the sole provider of 911 medical services in the 514 square miles of Burke County.  Burke County EMS currently operates out of seven stations located throughout the county.  

Non-Emergency Transport Services

In addition to emergency 911 response, Burke County EMS offers non-emergency medical transport to patients that meet appropriate medical necessity.  Please contact your insurance company or the EMS Offices at 764-9320 to determine eligibility.

Special Operations Team

EMS also operates a Special Operations team that operates responds to wilderness medicine in the austere environment.  Our Special Operations team consists of 25 technical rescuers and 20 technical trained support staff trained in water rescue, wilderness rescue, high and low angle rescue, ropes rescue and other various specialties.  

The Special Operations team also oversees the SWAT Medic program as a partnership with the Burke County Sheriff’s Office and the Morganton Public Safety where our SWAT Medics function in a dual role as both a sworn law enforcement officer and a paramedic.  Our Rescue Task Force responds in conjunction with our SWAT medics to provide initial treatment and triage in the event of a large-scale incident.  

Critical Care Transport

Burke County EMS employs 11 critical care transport paramedics that have the training and ability to provide ICU to ICU level medical care during transport from our local community hospitals to tertiary care facilities.  

Community Paramedicine

The Burke County EMS Community Paramedicine team provides mobile integrated health to citizens of Burke County by assisting with public health, primary care, and preventative health services to underserved populations.  Our Community Paramedicine team is also involved with opioid response to mitigate the risk of drug overdose as part of the opioid epidemic.  

Events Medicine

 The Burke County EMS events medicine team provides standby paramedic coveragefor mass gatherings throughout Burke County including the History Morganton Festival and high school football coverage for Draughn High School, East Burke High School. Freedom High School, and Patton High School.  The events medicine team also provides paramedic standby coverage for multiple ATV races, mud runs, boat races, band competitions and other events throughout the year.

First Responder Services

The Burke County EMS system includes the several hundred first responders across 19 fire and rescue departments.  In our system plan all first responders are required to have a minimum certification level of Emergency Medical Responder issued by the NC Office of EMS.  The volunteer Burke County EMS first responder program has piloted several statewide programs and initiatives to improve the prehospital care provided to the citizens and visitors of Burke County.  First responders are valuable members of the healthcare team that reduce the overall time it takes to providing prehospital emergency medical care.  See our First Responder page for more information.

State Medical Assistance Team

The SMAT Team provides critical services in the event of any disruption in local medical care availabilities.  The SMAT team can provide a mobile hospital, mobile doctor’s office, mobile morgue, and large-scale medical care in the event of a natural or other disaster.