Snohomish County ambulance company lays off 100 workers
EVERETT, Wash. -- A local ambulance company in Snohomish County has laid off about 100 workers.
Rural Metro Ambulance announced it has been bought out by AMR.
As a result the company is planning to consolidate all its operations and will eventually close the Everett office.
This change will affect 105 full-time and part-time workers, which includes paramedics, EMTs and dispatchers.
“There’s a lot of good people here who put a lot of years in and it’s a real sad situation all the way around,” said Brian Christenson, who worked for Rural Metro for 24 years.
Some of those workers have been with the company for more than two decades and are now left without a paycheck.
“It came as a shock to all of us. We had no idea, no clue,” said Catherine Palmer, who was an EMT with Metro Rural for 18 months.
AMR said it will continue to provide the same level of service in Snohomish County, without any interruption when it takes over on July 31.
The laid-off workers have been told they can reapply with AMR, if there’s an opening.