Calls from one man drain Greer firefighter resources

More than 70 percent of the calls for service that the Greer Fire Department has responded to this year has been to one address to assist one physically disabled 42-year-old man, draining resources and causing concerns about quickly responding to more urgent needs, fire department officials said.

Those calls are not treated as a high priority, but they do require at least two firefighters to respond, and Chief Chris Harvey said he's not sure what the department should do.

"It's creating an issue for service to the community," Harvey said. "We're very understanding about his situation and have tried to address it with alternative means, what can be done. Ultimately, if we stop doing the assistance calls, there's a hole that I don't know that you want the department to make."

Harvey and firefighter Josh Holzheimer said the Department of Social Services, the Greer Police Department, Medicaid caseworkers and others have been asked to intervene, but no solution has been found.

DSS spokeswoman Marilyn Matheus said DSS could not confirm investigations into situations about vulnerable adults.

"We've just not been able to get the resources we need to convince the individual that he needs to go other places and be taken care of properly, because he is sane and able to make his own decisions," Harvey said. "There is some home healthcare available, but it's not there 24 hours a day. It's really starting to tax the resources of the department."

The man routinely refuses assistance from emergency medical personnel and wants only assistance to return to his bed when he's fallen, Harvey said. There is no charge for the fire department's service.

"He's playing the system," said Holzheimer. "All of the equipment is on site for him to be able to take care of himself, but he doesn't use it. He came to the door when DSS got there, though, with his walker. He won't use it when they're not there. I gave him information from Able South Carolina (a nonprofit organization that provides help to the disabled). They said they would help him. I gave him all of that information, and he threw it away."

Of 229 service calls in 2014, 105 were to assist the disabled man. Of 114 service calls this year, as of late March, 83 were to assist the man.

"I don't know how to address it," Holzheimer said. "It's tying up our services here. I've called everybody I can possibly think of. We were going to put him into protective custody, so we met with one of the victim's advocates.

"She went to the judge and talked to him about it. He said we could put him in protective custody, take him to the hospital and get him evaluated, but he's going to come back here and say he's competent and they're going to let him go, and you're going to be the one with egg on your face because you had him taken against his will."

- Follow Michael Burns on Twitter @MikeNearGreer