YOUNGSTOWN — Firefighters responded quickly to a pond near McKelvey Lake on Monday morning, rescuing a girl who could not get out, the Youngstown Fire Department said.

A 9:49 a.m. call brought two fire department vehicles to the 500 block of Jacobs Road by 9:52 a.m. There they found a girl, 16, up to her waist in cold water, fire Capt. Timothy Frease said. She showed signs of hypothermia, but her injuries apparently were not serious, he said.

He said he was unaware of why the girl needed help getting out of the lake instead of being able to come out on her own.

A complication arose in trying to get an ambulance to come to the scene, fire Chief Barry Finley said. American Medical Response, known as AMR, could not respond, and no other assistance was available.

Frease said a citizen — believed to be a relative or someone else connected to the girl — drove her to St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital.

Finley said this has been an ongoing problem because AMR is “short on paramedics.”

Finley said the issue is “concerning, but to be honest, there’s not much we dan do. AMR is trying to do all they can, but they are short-staffed.”

A call to AMR in Youngstown Monday afternoon was not returned.

Finley said he trusts AMR implicitly, but added, “I think one day it will it will bite us in the butts.”

He said the fire department and the city’s fianance department are working on a proposal to have the fire department handle ambulance calls. He couldn’t pinpoint how soon the proposal will be presented to City Council, saying only it would be later this year.