Call an ambulance from the parking garage on Westerstraat in Emmen? This is not always possible due to the limited mobile range. And if you manage to reach the emergency services, the question is whether the ambulance can get to you.
In any case, it was reason for councilor Gunnar Jens Bijlsma of Wakker Emmen to sound the alarm. “Someone recently fell in the parking garage. But calling was not possible from the second underground parking deck. The ambulance could not get there and the elevators also turned out to be broken. We have asked questions about the latter before,” Bijlsma sighed.
Councilor Albert Jan Jakobs acknowledged that mobile coverage does not apply to the entire parking garage. For reasons of cost savings, signal amplifiers in the entire garage have been dispensed with. “We are now investigating whether we can still improve that.”
The problem with regard to accessibility for ambulances is the ceiling height. Because it is too low. Bijlsma proposed an idea to pass on that knowledge to the emergency services.
As for the elevators: the two will be replaced this week. And this should definitively resolve the persistent problems in that regard.
The lifts have been in use since 2013, but because the supplier has changed, maintenance has become a lot more difficult. The defective lifts were also raised more than two years ago. At the time, the reason given for the delay was partly the long delivery times for parts. They had to come from Italy. At the beginning of this year, the municipality invested a ton to solve the problem.