Fire Deptartment defends using trucks for medical calls

[Doug]

Eric, you avoided my point about crosstraining PD instead. No new vehicles. Most cruiser trunks have enough room for airway, IV, moniter and 1st round meds. And again they are on the road already.

What's that? PD doesn't want the job? Tough.

In my area we are not allowed to cancel FD.

[JakeEMTP]

Now lets say the Engine has a firefighter/paramedic in the jump seat, and a monitor/drug box/cpap/ all that nice ALS stuff on board.

And then what?

Why not dispatch an Ambulance instead of a piece of Fire apparatus so we can transport that patient? If there were more ambulances in service, which would happen if the FD really gave a shyte about pt. care instead of inflating call volume, that big red truck could sit in the station and remain shiny, waiting for "The Big One", just in case scenario.

[ericenglund]

And then what?

Why not dispatch an Ambulance instead of a piece of Fire apparatus so we can transport that patient? If there were more ambulances in service, which would happen if the FD really gave a shyte about pt. care instead of inflating call volume, that big red truck could sit in the station and remain shiny, waiting for "The Big One", just in case scenario.

I was referring to sending the engine with the medic. Obviously you need an ambulance at an EMS call. I'm saying an Engine, especially, with EMS trained personell would be a waste sitting a block away from a medical call when the medic is possibly responding from farther away. You never know how many hands you need. I don't know about you but I only have two.

[WolfmanHarris]

The justification is always that there are more Fire trucks and they are located closer so they should be sent as Ambulance response times are too high. No where does anyone seem to address the question being begged. Why are we not increasing the amount of EMS resources to meet the obvious increased demand? Why are we not building EMS stations to cut down on response times?

I have no problem with the Fire Department and appreciate the need for tiered response to some calls, but using non-transport resources as a stop gap doesn't actually solve any problems in EMS.

Quoting myself from the article on EMSresponder.com.

[JPINFV]

and if you read the article, it says they made it to the scene(ahead of the ambulance, by the way)

and as they were leaving the scene, the brakes failed.

I'd be willing to bet the fact that this was an EMS call vs. a Fire call had nothing to do with the brake failure. At least it wasn't on the way to the grocery store.

What would the quality of the breaks have been if the engine never responded to medical calls leaving it with significantly less wear and tear?

Say the difficulty breathing is 400lbs on the 2nd(or 3rd) floor. Or he's in cardiac arrest by the time you get there. Extra hands are nice. should you tie up an addictional ambulance thats probably even farther away than the first one, or send the fire engine from down the street?

Ok, every call that comes in as obese gets a dual response. In that case, let's put aeromedical assets on standby every time there's a freeway accident during rush hour.

[Dustdevil]

Geeze... amazing how some people just don't get it. I don't know if it is a case of none being so blind as those who will not see, or just simple stupidity. Either way, it's both sad and scary.

[Doug]

And yet again, no discussion about making PD into EMS first response. Guess we just want to boost FD numbers.

Hell, why not require all public servents to be EMS? Mailmen, sanitation engineers, PD, FD, town clerks, meals on wheels, school bus drivers.

[WolfmanHarris]

And yet again, no discussion about making PD into EMS first response. Guess we just want to boost FD numbers.

Hell, why not require all public servents to be EMS? Mailmen, sanitation engineers, PD, FD, town clerks, meals on wheels, school bus drivers.

Because education in EMS shouldn't be the sort of thing you can get on the side and because we shouldn't be relying on other agencies and jobs as stop gap band-aid solutions to hide the failures in EMS funding.

Like I said, give me a fire fighter or two on a bad call to help carry a bag, lift a patient or bag on route. Great it will keep another Ambulance free to respond and not tie up a Paramedic or two doing basic skills or manual labour in the back. But why are we relying on any agency for "first response" to all these calls and accepting this as a solution? If we can't get Paramedics to their calls fast enough, we need more ambulances and paramedics, not a fire truck or a cop car.

In terms of PD vs. FD taking part in EMS. Neither should beyond what I've described above. (I'll gladly have PD help me lift the 400lb'er) If you review the article you'll see the reason it's consistently FD, is they have less to do. I don't know too many cops with alot of down time on their shift and their presence on patrol between calls is supposed to be a deterrent to crime.

So far we've only ever dealt with system where Fire is the primary job and EMS tacked on. For those out there who consider themselves primarily as FF's who are also EMT's or Paramedics I have a question for you. With some of the ways services out there divide their training between the Fire and EMS roles, would you be comfortable going into a fire with someone if their training were reversed. If they studying and practiced medicine constantly and once in awhile completed Fire CME, maybe online, would you want them as your back-up? Would you be comfortable that they could do every part of Firefighting without hesitation or critical mistake? If that level of commitment is not good enough for you, then why would you wish something similar on every one of your patient's?

I've still got no problem with Fire and if someone wants to be a Firefighter and a Paramedic, get two jobs. Just make sure that you can do both as well as they deserve. I couldn't do it and from I've seen on the news sites, neither can a lot who try. But there's Physicians out their with double specialties... Don't force people to be a jack of all trades and master of none who have little to no interest in it. And please please don't try to blow smoke up their ass and convince them they've mastered something when they've barely scratched the surface. It may be good for their self-esteem but it's hurting patient's.

Honestly if you're reading this and still not getting why trying to dual role vastly different jobs is a problem, you either haven't been on the board long, are far smarter and capable then I am and can master and stay current on both with equal passion or have had far to many instructors tell you how great you're doing and how many lives you'll save as they slapped the patch in your hand that you're believing your own hype. Either way, I starting to understand the frustration of some of the senior members more and more with each passing day.

[crotchitymedic1986]

why not just hire enough emts and medics ?

[Dustdevil]

why not just hire enough emts and medics ?

That's too simple. Think of all the consultants and firemonkeys that would be out of work if we did that.