Commercial Electrician in Johns Island, SC

Johns Island would get its first hospital and a full-service emergency room under a $278 million plan proposed by Trident Medical Center.

Trident filed for a state license for the 50-bed hospital, which would include a 10-bed Intensive Care Unit. Its application was accepted July 28, according to the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.

The site would also include a 20-room ER, four operating rooms, a catheterization lab for heart procedures, two endoscopy suites and an imaging center with 2 CT scanners and an MRI, said Christina Oh, president and CEO of Trident Health.

It will be built on 56 acres off Maybank Highway back to Cane Slash Road, across from the Live Oak Square development, she said. County real estate records show that 10 parcels of land in that area near Zelasko Drive are owned under the name Johns Island MC, LLC. The address for the company is the same as HCA Healthcare, the Nashville-based owner of Trident Health.

Trident began acquiring the land in 2020 and will have room to expand to 150 beds in the future. The third floor will be built as shell space for a future labor and delivery unit and nursery, Oh said.

The health system is also reaching out to residents and physicians about what they would like to see in the new hospital, she said.

“A lot of the focus and discussions have been on how do we create a thoughtful plan that really preserves the natural beauty of Johns Island, that honors the strong Gullah Geechee culture, that honors the agricultural community that the island has been really known for,” Oh said.

It will also provide more rapid access to emergency services on an island where traffic can frequently back up and delay care. Not only has Johns Island grown but it also serves as a “gateway” to other communities, like Kiawah and Seabrook islands, which also lack a hospital, said Dr. Thomas Litton, a surgeon with Trident Health who lives on Johns Island.

The new offering “will greatly improve residents’ access to much-needed medical care,” he said.

Halloween is a favorite time of year for those who can’t wait to creep their way through haunted houses or binge on horror movies as they course through the “spooky season.” For others, a trip to the grocery store can be too much for their nerves.

For that, they can thank their brains and how their body reacts to being scared.

Exactly how the brain and body react to fear is not entirely clear, and much of what is known comes from studies in animals, said Jen Rinker, an assistant professor of neuroscience at the Medical University of South Carolina. Other insights come from using technology such as functional MRI, which allowed researchers in Finland to watch what areas of the brain lit up while people watched scary movies like “The Conjuring 2” and “Insidious,” for instance.

Fear is the brain’s and body’s reaction to a threat in the environment. It appears to activate a brain-body connection known as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Areas in the brain release a signal to the adrenal glands atop the kidney to release the hormones adrenaline and cortisol.

“Adrenaline is designed to heighten all of the sensory systems you need to respond to a threat, the fight-or-flight response,” Rinker said. The heart rate goes up, pupils dilate to take in more light, the body increases its oxygen intake and glucose distribution. This is “the adrenaline rush,” she said.

Cortisol is the body’s stress hormone, and while it also prepares the body to respond, it can also lead to high blood pressure and mood disorders such as anxiety and depression. One theory is that in those who enjoy the rush, their bodies release more adrenaline and less cortisol, while those who avoid thrills get the opposite, Rinker said.

The flood of adrenaline only lasts about a minute, but it can trigger a hormone in the brain that activates the neurotransmitter dopamine in the reward center of the brain, known as the nucleus accumbens.

“That’s what people think of as that reinforcing pleasurable feeling people get out of a thrilling situation,” Rinker said.

But it can also trigger dopamine in another area deep in the brain called the amygdala, which is part of the limbic system that is thought to control emotions. That can trigger fear-learning and inhibition.

Whether someone is seeking thrills or avoids that stimulation is likely a mix of genetics and the biological response and learned experience of what happens when their body is awash in those hormones.

“All of that interaction and release is incredibly complicated,” Rinker said. “I don’t think at this point we fully understand it.”

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It may even be that the experience, the environment, alters the genes themselves, which is known as epigenetics, said Dr. Kelly Holes-Lewis, director of psychiatry at Charleston-based nonprofit Modern Minds.

Thus, a fearful situation, or even a sound or a smell associated with it, could trigger a body’s fearful response on its own, she said. People often experience this with post-traumatic stress disorder.

“When you’ve seen something that is very fearful, it can create in you a physiological response when you see it again,” Holes-Lewis said.

This activates the sympathetic nervous system, the fight-or-flight response. It can happen in situations most people would not consider particularly stressful, such as going out in a crowd or even running to a store.

The key would be to try and flip the coin and activate the parasympathetic nervous system, often called the “rest and digest” or “rest and rebalance” system.

First, therapy can help a patient identify what is setting off that exaggerated response and why, Holes-Lewis said. Then there are ways of helping them approach it and overcome it, such as breathing and calming techniques while taking small steps through that experience or environment.

“It’s important to understand that fear can be helpful to us — fear is not our enemy,” Holes-Lewis said. “But when it starts to keep us from the best life that we want to live, that’s when we need to lean in and learn the skills on how to walk through that discomfort.”

A new development is coming to a neighborhood right off of Maybank Highway has some neighbors talking.

JOHNS ISLAND, S.C. (WCSC) - A new development is coming to a neighborhood right off of Maybank Highway has some neighbors talking.

As you hit Timberline Drive and Maybank Highway, it takes you directly into the new neighborhood, Maybank Village. The new development is hard to miss as it sits at the front of the community.

The groundwork for a new Spinx gas station has just begun. The project has been in the works since 2021, and members of the neighborhood say they’re not happy with the development. There is only one way into the upcoming gas station, and it requires drivers to enter the neighborhood first, then turn right to get into the station.

Residents say they don’t understand why Maybank Highway needs another gas station with several stretching across the highway already.

“Why? We don’t need a gas station here. If you go a mile down Maybank that way, there’s two gas stations. If you go down Maybank that way two miles, there’s two more gas stations. So why do you need a gas station here in the middle of Maybank that’s going to cause horrendous traffic jams,” Treasurer for the Homeowners Association Bill Antonucci said.

There are serious concerns about the bright lights and noise that might come along with the Spinx Station as well.

“This gas station is coming so close to our residential properties. These people in this house right here are going to have gas pumps and gas tanks right in their backyard. The people that are building this site, people in the city council, and the people in the zoning departments don’t seem to care. We’ve had people write to them and nobody seems to care. Nobody is responding,” Antonucci said.

Despite the frustration from members of the community, the City of Charleston is allowed to do this based on zoning regulations.

“The business in question is being built under the site’s base zoning, which is a property right protected by state law,” a city spokesperson said in a statement. “That’s why the city strongly supports a comprehensive, all-of-the-above traffic-relief strategy for Johns Island, including the widening of Maybank Highway, the construction of both the northern and southern pitchforks and the completion of I-526. The city will continue to work closely with our state and county partners until Johns Island residents see real traffic relief as a result of these and other critical roadroads projects.”

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JOHNS ISLAND, S.C. (WCBD) – Trident Medical Center is looking to build a new hospital on Johns Island.

A certificate of need was submitted by Trident Medical to the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) in a step toward constructing a 50-bed acute care facility between Maybank Highway and Cane Slash Road.

It would be directly across from the Live Oak Square development.

“We are excited to continue making medical care more accessible to residents in our historically underserved communities,” said Trident Health President and CEO Christina Oh. “Currently on Johns Island and neighboring communities, it can take residents 30 to 45 minutes to drive to their nearest hospital, and often longer in heavy traffic and inclement weather. Our goal is to increase access to timely, high quality, and affordable health care services.”

Trident leaders estimate the cost of building the new hospital at about $277 million. They said that in the first three years, the Johns Island Hospital would create nearly 300 jobs, contribute to $10 million in non-income taxes to support the community and pay $70 million in salaries, wages, and benefits.

“Johns Island Hospital will mean many residents in the area won’t have to leave the island for work. This will be a great benefit to them and their families,” said Oh regarding job creation.

In addition, the new Johns Island Hospital would be located seven miles from James Island Emergency, which is Trident’s new freestanding ER on Folly Road, which is slated to open in the next few weeks.

The hospital would include 50 beds with space to expand to 150 beds. It would have 40 medical/surgical/stepdown beds, 10 ICU beds, 20 ER rooms, four operating rooms, two endoscopy rooms, and other resources.

Leaders say the third floor will also be designed for future expansion to include a labor and delivery unit and nursery.

“From our first discussions about building a hospital on Johns Island, we have been committed to creating a thoughtful plan that preserves the natural beauty of Johns Island. We will honor the strong Gullah Geechee cultures of the community; we will partner with the areas’ community and businesses; and will promote the important and unique contributions of Johns Island’s agricultural community,” said Oh.

Trident Health operates hospitals in North Charleston, Summerville, and Moncks Corner with three area freestanding emergency departments, and Live Oak Mental Health and Wellness. Its fourth freestanding emergency department is forthcoming.

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Clemson University’s Historic Preservation program is launching the Johns Island Preservation Field School. The summer field school program funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Vernacular Architecture Forum focuses on researching and documenting late 19th and early 20th century public buildings and their role within the African American community on Johns Island, SC.

Alongside Clemson’s Historic Preservation program, the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture at the College of Charleston, the Progressive Club and the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission (GGCHCC) are hosting this three-week program—the field school runs from May 22 to June 9.

“The field school brings together African American studies, public history, history, historic preservation and other thinking and skills, all surrounding important and story-laden historic places and the people associated with these built environments,” explained Amalia Leifeste, associate professor of historic preservation at Clemson University.

The program includes workshops by historic preservation faculty, history faculty, archivist, scholars and local community educators, teaching participants about life in the Johns Island community during the Reconstruction, Jim Crow and Civil Rights periods. Through hands-on training in historic preservation documentation and research methods, including archival research, measured drawing, photography, laser scanning, photogrammetry and GIS, participants will learn how to document the physical fabric and cultural narratives associated with the historic buildings and landscapes on Johns Island.

“This is the kind of work that can bring new people into the field of historic preservation and assists in continuing to evolve the field to include buildings and people not always centered in historic conversations,” Leifeste said.

Johns Island residents will also be encouraged to apply to the second year of the field school (Summer of 2024), and they will be given priority along with applicants demonstrating historic or cultural ties to Johns Island or the broader Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor. Residents will also be invited to participate in one-day workshops with topics including reading buildings with Jobie Hill. Community members will be compensated for their time in attending these workshops.

Public Preservation Events

Johns Island Preservation Field School also offers three public events during its three-week tenure on the island. The public is invited to panel discussions, student presentations and a preservation advocacy discussion. Following are the events that are open to the public:

The first steps are underway toward a proposed golf course as Charleston County leaders considered it at a meeting Monday.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - The first steps are underway toward a proposed golf course as Charleston County leaders considered it at a meeting Monday.

The new course would be built between Bohicket and River Roads and Charleston County Planning Commission discussed the golf course and the accompanying neighborhood.

Dana Beach, the Founder of the Coastal Conservation League, said the development is important because it will set a precedent for the rest of Johns island. He said it’s important to clearly define the edges of Charleston County’s Urban Growth Boundary to avoid increased development on the island in the future.

The Orange Hill Project pushes right up against that boundary, which was set by the county to limit urban sprawl.

The 933-acre project includes a private golf course and 121 homes. While a plan for a golf course and neighborhood was already approved by the County for this area in 2004, the plan developers presented Monday actually reduces the number of homes plotted on the land and changes the location of the golf course and its entry point.

Beach said he’s happy to see the number of homes decreasing; however, he thinks the best thing Orange Hill developers could do for the Island is to place the undeveloped land under a conservation easement, essentially protecting the undeveloped land from further development forever.

“It really signifies a commitment to the future of the island, as a place that is not highly developed,” Beach said.

When asked if they would put a conservation easement on the undeveloped land in the project, developers said it was something they would consider. But they said over 200 acres of the property already have wetland covenants in place that protect the property from being developed.

“It’s difficult to have preservation covenants placed on wetlands, we have to get through the permitting process before that would happen,” Ray Pantlik, with South Street Partners, said.

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