Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Daniel Scott Elsner on June 7, 2009 at 7:27pm

My county has what we call First responders. I'm guessing they are the same as your EMR's. They have EMT licenses, and go out when toned. There are only two ambulances in the county, meaning if one is busy, they have to send the other ambulance from the other side of the county. Then they page out first responders, and there are nine departments in the county, four or five of them have first responders. We may get one that goes out, or three, it all depends.

Permalink Reply by Shanna Davis on June 8, 2009 at 10:55am

We are a combination dept. The volunteers cover the nights and weekends. We have crew nights, 12 hour shifts from 6pm to 6am. Each volunteer is assigned to a night so there are 3-4 people per crew night. Each crew night rotates throughout the month to cover one of the weekend 12 hour day shifts. If a volunteer cannot cover their assigned shift they must get another volunteer to trade or cover for them. If we have a larger incident then additional volunteers usually respond or we have dispatch page out again for additional manpower. This works out pretty well so that we don't always have too many people on scene.
We usually have our Captain or one of the Lts. on scene and they will send people back to the station if there are too many people on scene.

Permalink Reply by jeremy mankin on June 10, 2009 at 1:12pm

we have 15 personal on our department we have two first responder's and 7 emt-i's and six medic's and two transport truck's

Permalink Reply by Mark Klaene on June 10, 2009 at 6:04pm

I have 3 EMT -b's (basics or above) and 2 EMT-FR (first responders) and one EMT-B that is only certified at teh national level --not NM. We encourage everyone to respond including fire fighters (usually 3-4 FF respond) . This gives us plenty if we need to lead in the transport ambulance , or do a carry out, run and get gear, secure the home,perform CPR, fill out the paper work, etc.. . That means that during the day a typical response is 3-4 people and at night/weekend 7. So we never that large a crowd. Usually keep the number inside to 4. Only on rare occasions do we actually send folks home early because we have too many.

Permalink Reply by David Pleiss on June 10, 2009 at 9:31pm

Iam a german fire fighter and visit one time a year friends in and arround Philadelphia. I`ve heard that the city Philly have a big EMS problem and you have to wait sometimes more then 2 hours or more for an ambulance.
Have every US state or county different laws that tell the city/county/state how to manage/regulate the driving time from a ambulance to the call ?
For example in germany a ambulance have to reach the patient in maximum 8-9 minutes, uninteresting if you live in the city downtown or wide away in the suburbs. When the city can not hold this time, the fire department or the red cross create first responders to support the first minutes before a ambulance arrive the patient.
tc ss
Dave

Permalink Reply by Eddie Rogers on June 10, 2009 at 9:56pm

That is basically the way it works in my area. We (my fire department) has EMR's which are basically EMT-basics or EMT-B's, that respond to medical emergencies. Sometimes we are automatically toned other times the medic will request us. Depends on the severity (sp) of the call. We don't have a "time" restriction or regulation just depends on the nature of the call.

Permalink Reply by cassandra vaughn on February 17, 2010 at 6:02pm

Im still a probie but the way my volunteer rescue squad works is we rotate the crews. Some have three 12hr shifts for the week unless ur still a probie till u become a full memeber. The scanner goes off its whoever is on call, unless they dont have a driver which happens at times then they'll put a second or third dispatch in for either a driver or ems personel. We also have first responders in our county with only two rigs. So if ones out of serivce we have to take the other rig out to get to the call. With us we have a time restriction of 11 mins to get to the squad building and if u dont or cant get there in that time period then they'll either leave without u or someone else will take ur spot.

Permalink Reply by Lani on March 15, 2010 at 4:12pm

My station (we are primary Volunteer) is currently only 4 personnel, 2 EMT-B's and 2 non EMS....so you can imagine what our response is like. Many times it's just me (EMT-B) and one other (non) responding. However, during the day we have our career personnel (5) who are all EMT-I and 3 of them are airway cert as well...they respond out of our two primary stations.

Permalink Reply by Scotty V on August 11, 2010 at 10:43am

The reason why philly has a long response time for ambulances is because of the large call volume on the medics, its not uncommon to see the medic gone for the whole shift never to be seen in the station...also some of the 50 medic units are only part time so during the night at leat 15 of them are closed due to money issues. Its not a bad system just an overworked system....my towns system has only 2 ambulances on during the day and during the morning hours 5a-8am all four are staffed because of manditory over time due to the fact that atleast 3-5 times a day they are backed up 3 or more calls...most of them are b.s. ear aches, high fevers, or stuff that can be non-threating...

Permalink Reply by Bob McCartney on August 11, 2010 at 11:01am

We have 11 EMT-b's at our department. Everyone else is required to have basic first aid,cpr/aed. We don't staff the station, when the tones drop if your around you report to the station. Our policy is a first aider and EMT to get the squad out the door. At the 6 minute mark a EMT may respond solo.

Permalink Reply by Alex Sharp on October 7, 2010 at 2:05am

The way it works with us is that everyone who is a volunteer FF on any dept in our county has to have at least a First Responder cert. but most of us have our EMT-B.  In my area we have 4 different stations.  We get toned out to every medical aid that the ambulance goes on with the exception of Code-2 calls.  We have our squad that holds 3 people and we respond to all our EMS calls in that.  Each station has a Squad or Rescue that holds 3 people and that is how we respond.

 

Our usual dispatch for a medical goes as follows:  Chief officer, Squad, Cal Fire engine.  With that response during the summer we get, on average, 6 people if no one is cancled.  Usually we do a quick assessment and then either continue or cancle incoming units so there is not 10 people at a medical aid.

 

As for your question (ie. heart attack, stroke, etc...).  Heart attack or stroke we usually keep everyone coming incase it turns into a CPR call.  With a CPR call we are going to need 1 to bag, 1 for compressions, and 1 for defib.  With the compressions we will rotate so not one person is doing it for an extreamly extended period.  Then 2 of us will ride with the ambulance.  This puts a Medic in the back the Ambulance EMT driving, and 2 people to continue compressions and breathing all the way to the hospital.

 

As for having a lot of people on scene if a lot show up we only let the first few in and the others stay out side to help with the ambulance.  We turn the ambulance around and usually set up a IV for them.

 

As for "crews," whoever shows up at the station the first 3 or however many show up take the squad anyone else uaually returns to their home or stays at the station until we get back.

Permalink Reply by Michael Gawley on October 15, 2010 at 6:20pm

In my town they tone out a Medic and a private ambulance. The Medic vehicle will have either 1 Medic and 1 EMT, or 2 Medics. The ambulance will have 2 EMT's. Also, volunteer EMT's will show if they are available. If there are trainees on either vehicle, they too will be there. It's unusual to have more than 5 or 6 show up, although I have seen as many as 9 before. On very rare occasions when we are spread thin, only the Medic vehicle with 2 people will show up.