Tippecanoe Emergency Ambulance Service (TEAS)

Response Times by Area

We've been pouring through dispatch data for the county, and here's what it says...

(Remember, the national standard is to arrive on scene within 8 minutes 90% of the time.)

Outside Lafayette and West Lafayette

TEAS 90% of response times here are between 16 and 24 minutes, depending on which area of the county you're in. The further away from Lafayette you are, the worse the response time.

Inside Lafayette

TEAS 90% of response times here is about 12 minutes. The Lafayette Fire Department is sending basic life support trained firefighters to medical emergencies because they can get there within a few minutes to help stabilize, but then they're waiting for TEAS to arrive with an ambulance.

Inside West Lafayette

TEAS 90% of response times here is about 16 minutes. The West Lafayette Fire Department is sending basic life support trained firefighters to medical emergencies because they can get there within a few minutes to help stabilize, but then they're waiting for TEAS to arrive with an ambulance.

Ever wonder why a fire truck showed up at your house when you dialed 911 and asked for an ambulance?

Fire departments provide the basic life support (BLS) response. TEAS is supposed to provide the advanced life support (ALS) response and ambulance transport, in most cases.

Because fire departments are responding immediately and waiting for TEAS to arrive, it has become a crutch that allows TEAS to stretch their response times longer and longer with no accountability and force fire departments to effectively subsidize their operations.

For any medical emergencies that need more than basic things like CPR, assisting with breathing problems and first aid, the firefighters are not trained for that because TEAS is supposed to be handling those calls.

So even inside the cities, if you need more than that basic help, your only option is to wait for TEAS to arrive. When minutes count most, TEAS is making you wait.

Why? That's what we'd like to know...

We think the first responder staff at TEAS are doing a great job, under tremendous pressure, with not enough resources or enough pay. This is not a critique of our first responders. We're fighting to get appropriate transparency of these essential services, take a look at the whole system at work in the county, and make sure resources are allocated appropriately to get the job done as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Missing Accountability

After finding this dispatch data, we started requesting public records to figure out why...

What we found over the last several months is that TEAS has not been performing its legal duties toward the government units. Not a single government unit has any record they're legally required to receive from TEAS. These are operational reports, audits, financial reports, and minutes of board of directors meetings. The county commissioners, who are supposed to be providing oversight and governance of these essential services, and made the TEAS organization in the first place, seemed to be completely unaware of TEAS' obligations toward the county to provide these reports and documents or their role inside TEAS.

When brought to their attention, the county commissioners didn't decide to take it seriously and try to work with us to fix the problem- they deflected and denied. We were first told that there wasn't a problem: the commissioners had it all under control, and great strides were being taken to improve response times.

Every time we pressed for proof or details, we got nothing.

Tracy Brown, the current President of the County Commissioners, has the statutory authority to go get these records from TEAS. When asked to do so, he refused.

• What is being hidden?

• Why do the commissioners not seem to care that the response times are so poor?

Tippecanoe County Commissioners

• Tracy Brown

• Tom Murtaugh

• David Byers

Want a deep dive into all of this information? Read more here:

Want to see the complaint we filed with the Indiana Attorney General's Office? Click Here:

The whole system within the county is fragmenting

Because of the poor response times and lack of accountability by TEAS and the county government, township officials have had to take matters into their own hands to provide for their residents.

Because there is no real coordination in service between all these different areas and jurisdictions, no accountability, and no transparency, inefficiencies and service gaps are everywhere. When you couple that with the last few years of property tax changes coming from the state legislature, tax dollars for public safety are tighter than ever. It's time for the county to comprehensively review the entire system.

Township Examples

The largest unincorporated townships in the county are all breaking away from TEAS and county government's non-existent leadership:

• Wabash Township - Formed their own ambulance service late in 2025, because response times were getting close to 20 minutes

• Wea Township - Just recently announced it purchased a used ambulance and plans to add basic life support emergency ambulance service

• Tippecanoe Township - Current trustee candidate Eric Ehrman is running, in part, to fix ambulance services for Tippecanoe Township and plans to start a service if elected.

• Consider a donation to our cause.

  • It takes money to get out the word, like this website

  • We're hoping to send postcards directly to residents that have had long response times according to dispatch data. This direct outreach costs money for postage and postcards.

• Contact your county/city elected officials

  • Tell them the lack of transparency in our essential services is unacceptable, and that the commissioners need to go get their records from TEAS.

  • Make sure they know that Commissioner Brown is up for re-election this year, and you're watching.

• This November, vote for new leadership because your life may depend on it

  • State Representative, District 27: Tracy Brown has decided to run against Sheila Klinker to be your State Representative. Don't allow him to take his negligence to higher office.
    

  • County Commissioner: Because Tracy Brown has decided to run for State Rep, he is not running again for his County Commissioner seat. Julie Roush, the Republican candidate, will be more of the same thing that Tracy Brown has given our county. Vote for Andrea Burniske instead, who will make sure to bring as much transparency as possible to these essential services and bring these to the forefront.

• Contact your state legislators

  • Tell your legislators to support bills like House Bill 1251, which would further define responsibilities of county commissioners to identify and address service gaps in EMS coverage
    Read it here: IGA | House Bill 1251 - Emergency ambulance services

• Ask candidates about this when you see them

  • If you get the chance to talk to a candidate for a county, township, state rep, or state senate office, ask them to support reforming emergency medical services and direct them to this website.

• Share this page with friends

  • Tell others you know about this page and ask them to share their ambulance horror stories

Tippecanoe Needs Change