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First Responder Calls
I am with a 100% volunteer fire dept. who has about five guys that are first responders. There is a county squad that is also volunteer in our station and it seems that they are always out of service due to lack of participation. The county is starting to send other fire depts into our territory for first responder calls along with the nearest Squad, for assistance. But the squad does not always need the help, and a few guys feel like we are getting our faces slapped with the other depts coming into town. Personally I do not want to be a first responder but I will if need to be, and other guys are just shutting their pagers off to totally avoid the first responder call (which i think is total horse shit) and to just make fire calls or accidents. But they are the first ones to bitch when they did not make the first truck out to the big one because the seen the fire trucks go by there house and not have their pager on. How do we try to get these guys to take the blind folds off and realize the fire service is starting to change and that other resposibilities are starting to be put on the fire dept?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Roy Walker on
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All I can say is that at our department we have a few who have a hard time with medical but they show up just the same. We believe we are here to protect our community in any emergency and as far as any of us are concerned , and we have discussed this issue ,you respond or close the doors.
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Permalink Reply by david scheuerman on
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well everyone has a good opinion. every fire department serves there community to the best in which it can. in my firehouse we have first responder service. last year we missed only 3 of 90 ems calls. we only had last year 3 very dedicated emt's out of 6 that my department has. this year we have only 2 emts and we have missed 4 calls so far. as i see it we help our community when we can. we are a 100% volunteer department too. you should not make anyone do ems if they do not want to. every fireman brings something to the department whether big or small. some do more than others but there will come a time when you need that someone that doesnt come around much. so to say that you will get rid of a fireman if he doesnt make calls i think is wrong but that is my opinion. if you do make someone try ems and he is not able he could harm someone. does the chief of that department want that on his shoulders. all fireman have a life outside of the department so let them live it. i am an assistant chief and an emt. i would not kick any fireman off a call because depaending on the call you do need staffing. plus if the community is watching that is not going to look good. it is one thing to kick him off the scene for not following orders or wearing gear but take care of other business back at the station in the office where it should be taken care of. so in short with the staffing problem we all have i would look into serving the community the best you can.
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Permalink Reply by ashfire on
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If a volunteer fire company doesn't want to run medical calls in their area let people in your area form a volunteer rescue squad and let them run the calls. If you don't want them in your building let them build their own building.
This happens in many areas around the country.
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Permalink Reply by Norm Tindell on
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Very well. Whatever is best for you guys. Hope the citizens will be able to get prompt ems service.
We are fortunate. Hope it stays that way. We have recruiting problems of our own, but they are not nearly as severe. And many of our guys are still riding "The Bus."
Best of luck to you guys. Be safe.
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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What Gregory said...
Some entire states have no volunteer EMS simply because the call volume and training requirements have exceeded the ability of volunteer ALS providers to meet the current standards.
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Jeff, apparently what you are saying is "Why should we worry about people's lives and health, because we might miss a few fires and that is more important?"
If not, then what exactly are you saying?
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Jeff, if by "most people" you are referring to the citizens, I don't believe your statement was accurate.
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"And it is common for patients on scene to say that they called for an ambulance not the fire department."
It is also common for patients on scene to be drunk, stoned, and abusive, but that doesn't mean that those patients get to chose who responds to help them.
If your fire department runs first response and the patients don't understand why a fire apparatus responded before the ambulance, then your fire department probably needs to do some public education.
If your department is having problems because the membership wants to eliminate the best way to actually help people, then I agree - it's a problem.
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Either start a career EMS system or get ready to watch your department either be marginalized or die as an organization.
If you define running EMS calls - a clear way to help the community - as "screwing with" the members and use perjoratives like "bandade (sic) bus", then your department is in deep trouble.
If you refuse to run AED calls - the easiest way to save lives for any emergency agency - then you might as well put up a sign that tells the community that you don't care if they live or die.
Remember, when you refuse to help the community, it's fair play for them to refuse to help you. Expect it when fundraising time and budget time roll around.
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If you have members who are expected to run whatever calls your department runs, then you might need to revamp your orientation program to spell out accurate expectations of what they're going to be doing as department members.
When you use terms like "the bandade (sic) bus" to refer to EMS, that seems to indicate a possible origin of the attitudes of the members that don't like to run EMS calls, too.
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Where I am from if you told the county your fire company wasn't running medicals you will be in for a lot of problems.
One your chief could have his right to be chief pulled by the county and if the next guy still doesn't do it he is done too until there is no chief officer.
Your fire company can be resticted to their area or not called out at all.
You county money can be pulled or even apparatus removed from your station.
Plus EMT is taught more than first reponder in our area.
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"It's not the membership, it's beyond that and we serve our community very well."
In your opinion or in the majority of the community members' opinions?
"But that department better not wonder why they have nobody left because all the members went somewhere else."
With the increasing scientific evidence that CPR and AEDs save more cardiac arrest patients than does ALS, and that response time is one of the critical factors in delivering the CPR and first defibrillation when it will do the patient the most good, more and more fire departments will be expected to run medical 1st response if they don't do it now.
With that being the future, there aren't going to be a lot of "somewhere else" for the members to go in the near future.
Apparently, the original poster's county agrees, since they're sending another fire department to run medical 1st response in the non-responding FD's jurisdiction.
That's a response that's designed to take care of the people who need it. If the non-responding department members don't like it, their choices are to either get better trained and run the medical calls. Eventually, their community is going to wonder why their local department isn't responding, they're going to start asking questions, and facing those questions isn't going to be a lot of fun for the non-responding department.
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