To this day, Donna Echols regrets not taking a photo of her ex-husband, Jim Mabus, during their family’s Easter holiday gathering last year. Although they had been divorced for some time, Echols still maintained a great friendship with Mabus, the father to her sons, Denver and Jake.
“He went by the nickname ‘Diamond Jim,’” Echols said in an interview with the Mississippi Free Press on June 27. “He had a story about everything, a joke for every occasion. He was a great father to four sons and a really good friend to those who knew him.”
Often, Mabus came over to Echols’ home in Jackson, Miss., and the pair shared meals with the family.
So it was no surprise to Echols when Mabus agreed to look after her North Jackson home and care for her pets in April 2023 while she traveled out of the country for her son’s wedding.
Unbeknownst to them both, that Easter was the last holiday they would spend together. And what happened next would spur a legislative effort to change how counties make contracts with ambulance services.
‘I’ve Never Asked For Anything Personal, But I’m Asking For This’
During her interview with the Mississippi Free Press on June 27, Donna Echols was hesitant to revisit the harrowing night of April 27, 2023.
But she revealed some of the details during a WLBT investigation in June 2023.
After flying back to Jackson from the wedding, Echols returned home, walked inside and found Jim Mabus lying on the floor of her living room.
He had suffered a stroke and was clinging to life.
Echols dialed 911 for help. Assured that help was on the way, she waited.
After some time, she dialed 911 again.
It would take nearly an hour and a half before an ambulance from American Medical Response would arrive.
In that time, Echols had called emergency services several more times.
When help finally arrived, paramedics rushed Mabus to the hospital. He spent nearly a week in the intensive care unit at St. Dominic Hospital before dying on May 4, 2023.
During their investigation, WLBT found that AMR, the exclusive ambulance service provider in the capital city, met its contractually obligated response times only about 50% of the time.
Hinds County’s 2016 contract with AMR outlined the company’s contractual obligations, including requiring AMR to respond to 85% of priority-one calls—those judged most serious—in Jackson and Clinton within eight minutes.
After Mabus’ death, Echols, who has worked as a state lobbyist for more than 20 years, made it her mission to speak to lawmakers and push legislation that could help prevent another tragedy like the one her family experienced.
“I remember saying to them, ‘I’ve never in my career asked for anything of a personal nature, but I’m asking for this,’” Echols recalled.
Rep. Shanda Yates, I-Jackson, authored House Bill 1644, which requires that any new contract between a county and municipality for ambulatory services must include a mutual-aid clause that allows the service provider to contact another company to handle emergency calls that they cannot immediately respond to.
Yates said in an interview with the Clarion Ledger at the time that she decided to draft the bill after hearing the stories of Echols and several other families who had experienced long wait times for ambulance services.
“Last spring, I had some constituents that came to me with issues concerning ambulance response times. They were concerned and asked if anything could be done,” Yates told the Mississippi Free Press during an interview on July 9.
Yates said that she decided to write the legislation after Hinds County Chancery Judge Dewayne Thomas blocked the City of Jackson from exiting the county’s ambulance contract with AMR.
“It’s meant to help save lives,” Yates said.
On April 17, Gov. Tate Reeves signed that legislation, House Bill 1644, into law.
It is one of the 170 new laws that will go into effect on July 1, weeks before what would have been Mabus’ birthday, Echols said.
“There’s really not a day that goes by where my family and I don’t think about what happened to him,” Echols said. “His birthday is July 18. It’s kind of fitting that this bill takes effect during the month of his birthday.”
Judge Denies City of Jackson Exit From Hinds County Ambulance Contract
Since 2016, Hinds County has been in a contract with American Medical Response for the company to provide ambulatory services to municipalities across the county, including Jackson.
Donna Echols’ family is one of several that have voiced concern in recent years about the company’s response time to emergency calls.
Four years ago, the family of 5-year-old Queenyanna Davis, who died after being shot in the head at her aunt’s home in the Wood Village Apartments in Jackson, Miss., questioned whether a quicker EMS response could have saved her life.
“Why do you have to wait one hour and 30 minutes to get my niece off the floor? She was bleeding, she was still alive,” Lukeitha Davis told the Jackson Free Press on June 24, 2020.
Last year, following a series of resident complaints, the City of Jackson attempted to break out of the county’s contract and issued a request-for-proposals seeking to find their own ambulance provider instead of Hinds County’s choice.
In response, Hinds County filed a lawsuit against the city.
Then-District 2 Supervisor David Archie questioned whether Jackson residents would be well-served if the City broke out of the County’s contract and employed their own ambulance provider.
“Jackson cannot take care of Jackson already,” WLBT reported Archie saying on Aug. 21, 2023.
“They can’t handle crime, can’t fix red lights, can’t fix potholes, can’t clean up the community, can’t clean up parks, they’re about to lose the zoo,” Archie said. “Each and everybody in here knows the City of Jackson has a pathetic response time when it comes to JPD, and there’s no secret about it.”
Subsequently, Hinds County Chancery Judge Dewayne Thomas blocked the City’s action, saying that the City couldn’t break out of the contract and employ their own ambulance provider, WLBT reported on Nov. 28, 2023.
Though Jackson was not able to, other municipalities across the state have successfully cut ties with AMR in recent years.
“Gulfport and Biloxi faced little to no resistance,” Mississippi Today reporter Simeon Gates wrote on June 7. “Biloxi announced its decision in December, and the Gulfport City Council unanimously approved the switch in February. Both are now serviced by Pafford EMS.”
In addition, after 50 years, Harrison County ended its contract with AMR and switched to Louisiana-based Acadian Ambulance Services.
The new ambulance mutual-aid law only applies to new contracts, not old ones, City of Jackson Attorney Drew Martin said during a Jackson City Council meeting at City Hall on June 18.
Hinds County is contracted to receive ambulance services through AMR until 2026, Martin said.
‘This Is a Staffing Issue, Not a Mutual-Aid Agreement Issue’
When asked for comment on this story, American Medical Response deferred to the Mississippi Ambulance Alliance, which is a professional membership association for ambulance providers.
Mississippi Ambulance Alliance President Julia Clarke said in a June 27 statement to the Mississippi Free Press that mutual-aid agreements, like the one required in the new law, are common during times following natural disasters or mass casualty incidents.
However, she said, staffing shortages in the health-care industry, including a lack of staff at hospitals, is having a significant effect on emergency response times.
“Every ambulance provider in Mississippi, like all services nationally, is dealing with a workforce shortage that is impacting their response readiness for 911 calls,” she said. “While AMR services the largest city in the state and therefore tends to get more scrutiny on their response times, until a concerted effort is made to rectify the EMS industry workforce shortage similar to what has been done for the nursing industry, communities will continue to see the response times of EMS impacted. Without an increase in EMTs, there is no way to get more ambulances on the street.”
Clarke said the Alliance is “watching to see what impact this has in our communities, but we want to caution that this (is) a staffing issue, not a mutual aid agreement issue.”
For Donna Echols, the new mandate was a no-brainer. She is hopeful that despite staffing shortages, the law will make a difference in emergencies.
“It breaks my heart that we had to suffer like we did in order to get something passed that was common sense,” Echols said on June 27. “This legislation is going to make a huge difference. I’m confident that it’s going to save people’s lives.”
