EMSA on delayed response

[FireMedic712]

This morning (approx. 0800) EMSA was on delayed response. I suppose this means they have calls holding and no units. Owasso Fire was dispatched to take a call in Tulsa for EMSA. Do you all think instances like this will play an inportant role in TFD taking over eventually? I know its happened in the past as well. When I worked in Rogers County EMSA called and asked if we could post a unit in Tulsa to take calls! It actually happened one day when I was not on duty. Talk about NON interoperability, the unit was dispatched by cellphone. Just wondered what everyone opinion was including the EMSA medics that are members of RR.

 

[Secret_Squirrel]

That's nothing new. Sometimes the system gets overloaded and EMSA has to rely on outside agencies for assistance. Nothing wrong with that. Fire departments do that all of the time. During the ice storm, EMSA was really short on units and was looking for other EMS services to actually post in Tulsa and run emergency calls for them. Someone will get mad about that statement though. They shouldn't, because it was a severe weather event of record proportions and EMSA was running a record number of calls. They were also experiencing a severe misuse of the EMS system. People needing rides to doctors appointments because they were afraid to get out on the ice...etc..etc.

What's WRONG is to ask for mutual aid then try to hide the fact that you did it, and then get mad about it when people mention it. People need to ask themselves: Why would EMSA want to hide the fact that they got overloaded from the public?

I don't think that it will play a role on whether or not TFD takes over EMS services in the Tulsa metro area. Why should it? Again, it's nothing new and it's been going on for years.

As far as the non-interoperability goes, that's not something proprietary to just EMSA. All sorts of agencies around here can't talk to each other. My local fire department can't even talk to the neighboring department that does 90% of the mutual aid in our area. Why? They won't turn loose of any portables. Oh, it's not that they don't have any to spare or anything like that though.

If EMSA had other EMS services running calls for them, they could have easily sent a little EMSA SUV, pickup truck, or van, that you see running all over town to take the other crew some portables while they were helping out. However, the cell phone method seemed to work just fine since there was no interuption of the local cellular system.

 

[car2back]

They call SKiatook FD atleast once a month for Mutual Aid; usually it's at 3-4AM and they get all the way to 46th St N on US75 before they get cancelled, or re-assigned to another call somewhere else.

Andy at OT will sometimes send the transfer truck down to Tulsa, just to stage and run EMSA calls when they are overloaded!

Another "interesting" thing about EMSA is the 9 minute time limit to reach a call starts over when they reassign the call. SO if a call comes in and they have a truck at SJMC about to go in service, they can start SKiatook or Owasso even though they are 15 minutes out; wait till the time is about to expire then reassign the call to their own crew. Just a trick of the trade, I guess.

Mutual Aid is a great thing in my opinion; it never hurts to help someone out :wink:

 

[rush2112ok]

It not just EMSA that get over loaded. For a while (before we got two new hospitals up here) Collinsville EMS was running into Owasso 2 - 3 times a day to Owasso because Owasso EMS had both there units in Tulsa dropping off a patient. OTMS has come in to Pafford area for Mutual every once in a while.

 

[KE5EHI]

Mutal Aid is (or at least should be) a part of any 911 EMS system. There are times where there are more emergencies than ambulances and the quickest way to help someone is to call for another service. I've run many calls in other service areas like Owasso and Creek County. Take Owasso for example. They usually only have two staffed ambulances and a third they can use, but what happens when one or two of them are on a call and you have a multi-patient MVC with different destination hosptials? That happened last week. One of the problems with a large city like Tulsa is people do abuse the 911 system and call for ambulances when they are really not needed (determined by common sense... which isn't very common). I think another problem is the fact that there are record setting call volumes coming in. By the time you can add the staff and equipment to handle the added calls, the volume has gone up again. It's just part of urban EMS. More and more people are becoming dependant on emergency rooms and using ambulances to get there. I know when EMSA gets overloaded, they will ask other services to take transfers for them so they can manage the number of 911 calls coming in. Like it was stated already, EMS isn't the only service to mutual aid. FD and PD do it a lot as well.

 

[KE5EHI]

If EMSA had other EMS services running calls for them, they could have easily sent a little EMSA SUV, pickup truck, or van, that you see running all over town to take the other crew some portables while they were helping out. However, the cell phone method seemed to work just fine since there was no interuption of the local cellular system.

Those SUVs, Vans, Pickups you see usually will already be tied up if we are called for mutal aid. Plus we only have a limited number of portables to start with and are trying to get more, but I believe the City buys them so we can't just up and get them. I do know Owasso can talk to our dispatch on our main channel and I've heard a few other services talk on our mutal aid channel, so not all of them need a radio as they already can communicate with us. As for the support trucks, the SUVs are directors and supervisors and when there's a call holding, they will respond to it. The van is a service support vehicle that runs supplies and errands. The white truck is a shop truck that a supervisor can take if we have a second one on or if their Expedition is down. The red, white, and blue MMRS truck is the MMRS director and he'll run calls if he's available. The SUVs carry enough supplies to work a call the same as a crew with an ambulance for the most part.