GALVESTON COUNTY, Texas -- In its first step to improve sketchy ambulance service on the Bolivar Peninsula, the county funded three full-time medics to answer emergency calls there.

Volunteer fire departments, with limited resources, are stretched too thin on the peninsula, County Judge Jim Yarbrough said.

It’s tough to get an ambulance during daylight hours on the peninsula. The only medics are volunteers who work off the peninsula and can’t easily respond to emergencies.

The county will spend $177,811 for salaries, equipment and supplies until the end of the fiscal year in August. Most of the money will come from the county’s capital projects fund; the rest will come from tobacco settlement money.

The county chose to fund medics rather than hire a fulltime ambulance service.

Private ambulance firm Texas Gulf Coast EMS LLC would charge $295,000 a year to provide service on the peninsula, according to estimates provided by the county. Galveston Area Ambulance Authority, which provides ambulance services for Galveston, Tiki Island, Bayou Vista and Hitchcock, would have charged $1.66 million a year to respond to emergencies full time on the peninsula. The ambulance authority, though, is also short-staffed by 20 medics.

The full-time medics, based at Crystal Beach Volunteer Fire Department on South Monkhouse Drive, will work weekdays. Two medics will work from midnight to noon, while one medic will work between noon and midnight.

Charlie Bouse, chief of the Port Bolivar Volunteer Fire Department, said peninsula residents should see improvements in ambulance service.

Ambulance service is usually most sketchy on weekdays, he said. Bouse said he can recall many times where he was roused from sleep in the middle of the night to answer an emergency and made it home just in time to take a shower and catch the morning ferry to his job on the island.

“Unfortunately, the way it is now, when it’s real late night or real early morning, nobody responds to calls because they have to wake up and go to work,” he said. “There are some calls that don’t get answered.”

The full-time medics likely will begin work in three to six weeks.