– By Tiffani Ireland –

If you have driven by the Edgefield County Hospital lately, chances are you have noticed the agency’s new look due to the absence of the large pines that used to decorate the roadside in front of the facility.  The hospital recently cut down the longstanding trees, as ECH’s Leslie Seigler explained in an interview with The Advertiser, due to the safety hazard the trees posed. Mrs. Seigler explained that not only did the trees hang over the power lines connected to the hospital, but they also stood too closely to the helicopter launch pad which is now in regular use with the hospital’s new AirMed service.

The cleanup of the felled trees is expected to be completed within the next two weeks.  However, the hospital will again have a new look when school resumes in the fall.  That is when Strom Thurmond High School’s Horticulture class will be giving the facility a face lift by providing landscaping where the newly cut pines once stood.  In regards to the cutting of the pines, Mrs. Seigler said, “We hated to do it,” but expressed the hospital’s excitement about the new look to come in the fall.