The Round Table
departments
Does your department provide any type of emergency medical service for the people you serve? If so, just what type of service is it? And how is this service funded (taxes, fund raising, etc.?)
Gregory Drover, Asst. Chief, Durango, Col.: Being in the unique mountainous region 18 miles north of Durango, Col. provides us with a two-fold challenge: medical support for the county ambulance service and rescue for the county sheriffs and state highway patrol.
We are funded as a state fire protection district through property taxes and thus the utilization of proper equipment with limited dollars is of utmost importance.
Our services are limited to emergency care and basic life support for anyone within the district boundaries or, when requested , we respond to calls by the emergency agencies of the county. It is impractical for us to transport since our local ambulance service is excellent.
On medical calls we respond a squad with at least two EMTs. The squad is a 4-wheel drive equipped with medical, extracation, and mountainous terrain rescue equipment, as well as fire fighting equipment. On motor vehicle accidents we respond with the squad as well as one engine company for additional support.
Our remoteness from the nearest hospital facility prompted us to add a squad and since we have done so, it has responded to approximately 80% of our calls (80% being medical related.) All EMTs are required to spend a minimum of one day a month in the emergency room of a local hospital. In addition to this continued training, the EMTs participate in training classes conducted by the coordinator of the ambulance service, so skills are kept at a high level of competence.
All in all, our new service has been well accepted in our district and has added a new dimension to the fire service in our county.
Alfred Abeita, Chief, City of Gallup, N.M.: The Gallup Fire Department is responsible for providing EMS Service to approximately 85,000 people in a 55,000 square mile area. We have one privately owned ambulance and one volunteer fire department in our county that provides EMS.
We have 40 EMTs working two light duty rescue. Our funding comes from several resources: Northern New Mexico EMS Council 1201-1202, New Mexico EMS Fund Act, New Mexico State Fire Marshal Fire Fund, Gallup Lion’s Club, and various other donations from citizens.
Training service is provided by the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, N.M. State Fire Marshal office and two local volunteer EMT instructors. ‘The Gallup Fire Department has played a major role in establishing a city and county EMS system in western New Mexico.
Ray W. Lamp, Jr., Chief, Martinsburg, W.V.: Our department provides 24-hour ambulance and heavy rescue service to our community. Personnel are trained as emergency medical technicians or in advanced first aid, and are also certified in CPR.
We do not provide any type of paramedic service for we do not have any personnel trained in that field.
Neither the department or the personnel receive any compensation from the ambulance fee charged to the patient. This fee is given to a non-profit organization known as Ryneal, which maintains and purchases new rescue units.
The above mentioned services are provided to the community by paid fire fighters of the City of Martinsburg.
S.S. Weedon, Chief, Waynesboro, Va.: Our city is served by a volunteer first aid crew. The organization is entirely separate from our department and independent of the city government. The crew assists us in training and responding on structure fires along with our apparatus. We respond with them on vehicle accidents involving injuries and with manpower on rescue crews when they are short-staffed. We have had six of our 50 fire fighters certified as EMTs and usually have one on each shift. The crew is financed by donations while the fire department is financed by taxes. We have no paramedic service at this time.
Richard T. McGlynn, Chief, Ridgefield, Conn.: The Ridgefield Fire Department consists of 19 paid personnel, 60 volunteers, 11 apparatus including two ambulances, serving an area of 35 square miles and 22,000 population. We average about 900 ambulance calls and 350 fire calls per year. The paid staff are all trained EMTs, basic life support and are also responsible for fire fighting. The paid staff handles fire and ambulance responses around the clock, supplemented by 8 volunteer EMTs who stand by Monday through Friday evenings, while the balance of the Volunteers are called in for fires. In case of double ambulance calls, off duty men are called in.
We are in the first stage of changing our ambulance service from basic life support to advance life support, starting with six personnel attending Danbury Hospital on the IV module. Within three to five years we will have a total advance life support system for the town, increasing our full time staff to 24, half of which will be FF/ALS.
Any funding necessary is raised through taxes along with the other town departments. There is also a volunteer ambulance fund supplemented through citizens’ donations. We cannot charge response fees due to state EMS regulations, which only allow commercial ambulances to charge.
We feel that the town is getting the most productivity out of its paid personnel for the monies spent, presently $333,800 for the operating budget. We all know that only approximately 5 percent of the total firemen’s time is spent fighting fires, therefore we have added the ambulance service which is responsible for 75 percent of our total responses.
Hueston Reynolds, Chief, Beaverton, Or.: The fire department of the city of Beaverton is an all paid man department, operating through tax funding. We provide our community with emergency medical services 24 hours every day of the year. Our department has two engines, one truck and a transportable rescue as first line equipment. While our engines and truck are all manned by EMT I’s, and provide basic life support, our rescue is manned by EMT III’s and IV’s and has advanced life support capabilities.
Because of the increasing importance of EMS in the fire service, our department is striving for 100 percent of fire suppression personnel to hold at least an Oregon State EMT I certification. New members to our department, must obtain this rating within the first year of employment.
Arthur M. Caldwell, Chief, Murray, Utah: Murray City Fire Department does conduct an emergency medical service consisting of 14 certified emergency medical technicians and a fully equipped rescue vehicle. These firemen perform emergency medical service, rescue and extrication duties to all emergency responses within the boundaries of Murray City. Often we are called to assist Salt Lake County Fire Department when they become short handed.
We do not have paramedics and we do not run an ambulance for transportation of patients. This service is performed by Salt Lake County Fire Department and is financed by county taxes.
Murray City Emergency Medical Service is financed by city taxes and is a part of the fire department budget.
Fred L. Davis, Chief/Amb. Dir., Crawfordsville, Ind.: We provide emergency rescue and medical services for three townships. We have six ambulance personnel, and 19 fire fighter emergency medical technicians. Our organization is wholly tax supported by the city, and contract service to the townships we serve. We do charge for services.
Mike S. Puntillo, Chief, Addison, Ill.: The Addison Fire Protection District provides full paramedic service to the community. We operate two MICU ambulances and respond to approximately 1500 emergency medical calls annually. The service is funded by a special ambulance tax levy which was approved by the voters in 1974. However, the first MICU vehicle and equipment was donated by the Addison Firemen’s Association, but is maintained and operated by the ambulance tax levy.
George Driscoll, Chief, Sanford, Maine: The Sanford Fire Department has two ambulances for an emergency ambulance service for the Town of Sanford. Part of the service is funded through taxes and the other portion is from charges made to the individual user.
Emil F. Steinseifer, Chief in Charge of Training, Peoria, Ill.: The Peoria Fire Department is currently instructing the 81-hour Department of Transportation Dunlap Emergency Medical Technician course through the Joint Apprenticeship Training Course in conjunction with the International Association of Fire Fighters and International Association of Fire Chiefs. We are one of a few granted this opportunity through the U.S. Department of Labor.
We now have 142 men out of 160 in fire suppression certified as EMTs; we are now in the process of instructing the remainder of the department and in February, all men in fire suppression will be certified.
Our population is 130,000 and we cover 64 square miles. We work closely with the paramedics operating their ambulances out of local hospitals, and we have training exercises between the EMTs in the department and the local paramedics in the fire stations and at the fire academy.
We operate two basic life support units using our pumpers, and also have two rescue vehicles manned daily. We also have 95 men certified as emergency rescue technicians, certified through the State of Illinois following the 60-hour department of transportation syllabus, and then tested by the state of Illinois.
We answer all rescue calls with a response of one pumper, one truck and a rescue squad. In this manner, we always will have at least seven EMTs and five ERTs on the scene of a rescue call. We answered a total of 1200 calls in 1978 including basic life support and rescue calls, and 1165 basic life support only.
Will Spencer, Chief, Auburn Wa.: We provide full EMS to two cities and a fire district. An aid car and mini-pumper are equipped and licensed under the state of Washington as an ambulance and aid car respectively. All engine companies are equipped as back-up aid units. All aid runs are handled by at least two certified EMT personnel. Known major trauma and CPR type calls are answered with an additional man. We do not transport unless it is immediately necessary with no private ambulance available. In addition, we are served by the Kin County Paramedic Service adding the second layer advanced skills for major trauma, bleeding, breathing and heart problems. The area is served by several private ambulance agencies for transport and back-up. The aid car system is supported in the fire department budget as a part of suppression by general funds. The county is going to the voters this fall for an EMS levy to help support both the first and second response units. This type of levy is now possible under recent legislation by the state. Prior to the county taking operation of the paramedic programs they partially funded “Provider Groups” which, in some cases, raised the additional funds through public contribution and local general funds.
The system in King County (surrounding Seattle) was patterned after Seattle’s Medic-1 and is the most sophisticated available anywhere. The layered first response provides highly trained EMTs who in many cases are defibrillation trained, backed by the second response paramedics who operate under predetermined orders and tight medical supervision.
