What Police Departments provide EMS and Ambulance transport

[FormerEMSLT297]

We have spoken at length about the pros and cons of Fire based EMS, vs. Third service, vs. Hospital based, etc. I know that in some places in the United States, the primary ambulance service is provided by the Police or Sheriffs Dept. I know of 2 in New York for example:

Nassau County NY, the Police Dept. runs the ambulance service, and has something like 24 ALS ambulances. (in addition to the 71 volunteer Fire Depts. that provide ALS/BLS units and Don't ask.)

Greenburgh Police in Westchester Co. NY, also provides ALS ambulance service.

I have heard that there are some sheriffs offices in NY that provide Deputy Sheriffs in Paramedic fly cars, and they do ALS intercept with local volunteer BLS ambulances.

I am interested to see how many Law Enforcement agencies provide primary EMS, I am NOT talking about Helicopter units, or Police cruisers that have AED's and maybe some EMT's doing first response. I just want to hear about ALS providers, or Transport units.

Aslo, if anybody has first hand knowledge of whether this type of system works, better, worse or about the same as more "traditional" EMS providers.

thanks

Former

[akflightmedic]

Indian River Shores in Florida has this set up. It is a very small, exclusive community, so they get what they pay for.

All of their employees are triple P certs or what we call pyro pig medics. Openings are very rare, hiring is competitive as is pay and benefits.

They work 24 hours on 48 hours off. 8 hours on the cruiser, 8 hours on the engine and 8 hours on the ambulance. They are happy with it and it works for them. However they are very small, meaning one primary ambo, a backup ambo, few engines and several cruisers.

They have been known to issue speeding tickets from the engine...lol.

Call volume is low and if I ever had an interest in LE, I would jump all over this job as pay is good and benes are fantastic.

[FormerEMSLT297]

Indian River Shores in Florida has this set up. It is a very small, exclusive community, so they get what they pay for.

All of their employees are triple P certs or what we call pyro pig medics. Openings are very rare, hiring is competitive as is pay and benefits.

... (edited for content)

Call volume is low and if I ever had an interest in LE, I would jump all over this job as pay is good and benes are fantastic.

What do you mean by triple P certs ??? (3 paramedic certs ?)

Sounds interesting thanks,, the only comment i would have is if it is so small, might not be the greatest for someone who wants heavy duty LE work,, sounds like a cool job to be able to do all 3,, thanks for the reply.

[akflightmedic]

Sorry thought I explained it.

Triple P is Pyro, Pig and Paramedic.

They have to have attended the police academy, fire academy and medic school.

Most of the guys are seasoned, very rare to see a noob here. In fact, I cant recall any.

[Dustdevil]

What do you mean by triple P certs ??? (3 paramedic certs ?)

All of their employees are triple P certs or what we call pyro pig [para]medics.

Highland Park, an exclusive (i.e. filthy rich) suburb of Dallas, does the exact same thing. Several other Dallas-Fort Worth towns did the same thing at various times (including Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, who started the concept), but all but Highland Park has ditched the idea now. A couple of others retain the "Public Safety" designation, but have separated the job functions and now share only a common administrator.

Highland Park DPS has a nice website at http://www.hpdps.org/ , and a good overview of the DPS concept at http://www.hpdps.org/NewHPDPS/AboutUs/PSOSystem.htm . I went to medic school with some of their guys, and there were two basic types. Either they were cops who had an interest in EMS, or they were firemen who had little or no interest in it, but had even less choice. EMS wise, they send their people to the 90-day wonder firemonkey paramedic school in Dallas. They do have some medics who hired on after already being medics that have a better education, but they are the exception. They actually have one volunteer with that department, lol. An uber rich guy with a masters degree and his own successful business, who's lived there all his life. Paid his own way through an excellent medic school and fire certs too. I recerted with his medic class twenty-something years ago, and he's still there today. Probably the best medic they have, and definitely not a wanker. But they don't officially have a volunteer programme. Hard to find volunteers in that kind of community.

Interestingly, the other area departments that combined EMS and Fire with Police services all did it with pre-existing medics, so there was never a need to send people to a quickie medic school to get staffing levels up. They all had medics with good educations and a lot of previous experience. All those departments ended up splitting back up eventually. One of them was the City Of Watauga, http://www.ci.watauga.tx.us/police/index.htm If you read the bio's of the police and fire chiefs, you can see the DPS roots. It shows the Police Chief started out with the city as a volunteer fireman, and it shows the Fire Chief holds a Master Peace Officer's Licence, lol.

Back in the 1960s, it wasn't unusual to see a big city PD attempt to do EMS as there was no "normal" thing back then, except for funeral homes. Dallas and Fort Worth police departments both tried it briefly, but both went to private ambulance contracts shortly therafter. Of course, this was before ALS paramedic days, so I apologise for the sidetrack.

[Ridryder 911]

I have worked for a Police EMS once. Norman, OK (home of OU) EMS was a division of the Police Department. They performed it over 25 years until it was moved into the hospital setting (which the city still owns).

Personally, they were a very pro EMS and like the P.D. required a degree to work there. One had to go through the Police Academy as well although they did not wear weapons on-duty, you had the same privileges as an officer. What concerned me was the uniform was exactly like the officers, except the isignia was S.O.L. instead of a state symbol.. (some difference!)

I have to admit, all the officers were trained as first responders (really trained not passed through) and they actually had some officers at the ALS level that could first respond before an EMS unit could arrive. As well, they provided all the rescue and extrication, the only rescue not provided by the Police was of course fire entry. The F.D. at the time was only called out for wash-downs.. to say the least, some attitudes was developed.

I have to say, there was never a time that I did not have help and as well knew I was safe too. The only down side I had seen was the testerone rampage, that could be common in any EMS.

I believe due to economics and some political changes it was shifted to the hospital. They had a choice to remain as officers or go to the hospital, most went to work for the hospital and some chose to remain as officers.

Even now, it is a hospital type EMS it still is somewhat paramilitary and well disciplined. They are known to be one of the best EMS providers around.

R/r 911

[Medic2588]

In NJ, I know the following Police Departments provide BLS ambulances, but this is not an exhaustive list:

1. Plainsboro Twp (Middlesex County)

2. Union City Police (Hudson County)

3. Passaic Co Sheriffs (Passaic County)

4. Toms River Police (Ocean County)

5. Edgewater Police (Bergen County) supplies police officers to the volunteer ambulance during the day

6. Ridgefield Police (Bergen County)

7. Brick Twp Police (Ocean County)

8. Elizabeth Police (Union County)

Hope that helps. These seem to be working very well. Most of them are civilian employees of the police departments.

Devin

[AnthonyM83]

Sunnyvale, California in the San Francisco area does all three. You do stints and each area and then have the option to keep rotating or stay on one side only.

California Highway Patrol hires paramedics, both for their helicopters (which are the primary medical area units in some areas) and regular patrol units (in certain areas they're always first on-scene).

[Richard B the EMT]

Speaking of the Nassau County (NY) PD, when a call for an ambulance is received, a patrol car and a Paramedic-driven ambulance respond to the location. The Paramedic then does most of the patient care, and the LEO becomes the driver for the ambulance. Admittedly, this works better with the 2 man cars, otherwise the ambulance has to return the cop back to the scene to pick up the police cruiser; with 2 man, the cruiser picks up the ambulance driving cop at the hospital. The Paramedic then drives the ambulance back to it's staging point.

It seems to work for them, but I admit my own uncertainty if it could or would work in another jurisdiction, or with other specific situations that can, and do, crop up.

[Just Plain Ruff]

It's been a while since I knew anyone from Gladstone MO but if memory serves me right they have triple certed staff.

4 months on ambulance

4 months of fire truck and

4 months on police

i think they might have gone away from this in the near past. Not sure