BROUSSARD, LA — The fastest emergency response time in Lafayette Parish should soon be in Broussard. The city entered an exclusive agreement with Acadian Ambulance with the goal of saving more lives.

The new contract will improve the average response time within Broussard by a full two minutes when compared to the rest of Lafayette Parish, but Acadian Ambulance is offering this deal to other municipalities that want it.

“If we’re going to do this sort of contract, what we’re interested in is saving lives,” said City of Broussard Mayor Ray Borque.

For months Acadian Ambulance has been looking for partner cities to enter exclusive ambulance service agreements. On February 1, 2020, Broussard will become the first.

Mayor Borque said it will come with one major benefit, “That was the thing that was a priority for us when we started negotiating with Acadian Ambulance is that we would get a faster response time on average per call.”

Apart from Broussard’s contract, the response time Acadian promises in Lafayette Parish is under 13 minutes 80% of the time, but Broussard will be guaranteed a full two minutes faster.

Broussard Fire Chief Bryan Champagne encouraged the deal because he knows how valuable those moments can be, “120 seconds is a lot of time, and it really could mean life or death.”

Champagne expects Acadian to be in more of the city which could affect those who currently have the slowest response time of all. “If a unit is in the area then that response time is cut sometimes in half”, he said.

“To ask Acadian Ambulance to allocate more resources, more personnel in the city to increase our response time was a big ask,” admitted Borque. “But I think they met the challenge head-on.”

Acadian Ambulance Regional Vice-President Michael Burney told The Advocate, “This is just the next step. Before 10 years ago, this probably wasn’t necessary.”

In a more competitive market, both Borque and Champagne believe other cities will follow their example and get the best offer from Acadian Ambulance that they can.

Borque said, “It would be well worth looking at, and I’m sure that they will be looking at in the future because we were not the only city Acadian was trying to talk to.”

In another part of the contract, Acadian agreed to help with large scale events in the city provided more advanced care in case of an emergency. The deal with Acadian Ambulance will run a full year starting on February 1. After that, there is an option to extend it for three more years.