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Date: 4/18/2023
SPRINGFIELD — The numbers are impressive.
Between Aug. 29, 2020, and March 31, 2023, AMR provided 455,300 tests to detect the coronavirus at its testing facility at Eastfield Mall.
The ambulance company was recently recognized for its contributions at a ceremony at the mall organized by state Rep. Orlando Ramos (D-Springfield). Ramos told Reminder Publishing, “We would like to show appreciation for all the workers. It was thanks to the collaboration between Eastfield Mall and AMR that we were able to Stop the Spread.”
Kim D’Angelo, the operations manager for AMR in Springfield, explained to Reminder Publishing that the company completed nearly half-a-million tests through teamwork. Employees would rearrange schedules to help in the effort with 130 of them participating in the testing service. Extra personnel were hired, she added.
“Employees were eager to help,” she said.
The company also did testing in other locations in the state as well as some vaccination services, D’Angelo added.
She readily admitted the company didn’t expect the number of people they would serve when they started. Originally, AMR was only supposed to be testing for a limited time, she noted, but the demand brought extension after extension.
Those extensions brought air conditioning units to the test set up in the parking lot in the summer and heaters in the winter.
D’Angelo added the tests offered were not the rapid tests, such as the ones people take at home, but tests sent to a lab which then delivered the results in 24 hours.
At its peak of service, there were 12 tents set up in the mall’s parking lot serving about 3,000 people a day with the lines moving at about 100 cars every 15 minutes. D’Angelo said the people who came for testing weren’t just from Springfield, but many neighboring communities and from other states.
People would join the line at 2 or 3 a.m. some days and D’Angelo said the policy was “if you’re in line, we will test you.” Staffers would stay past the established hours of the testing service to make sure people received testing. Most of the time the service was offered from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., although those hours were expanded at some times to meet demand.
What helped the Springfield branch of AMR, she said, was the fact the company is a large national firm.
“We had support from other sites,” she said.
Although AMR has worked with the Federal Emergency Management Agency responding to natural disasters, D’Angelo said the testing was “definitely a new shift for us.” Besides the experience of setting up and implanting a large testing service, D’Angelo said the company’s EMT now all wear masks when going to a call, something the company had not required before the coronavirus pandemic.