Fire/EMS

[GottIstGutig]

Do most fire departments have an EMS Division? Or do they have it seperate from thier fire department? A city I live by thier EMS is ran out of thier station.

 

[rdale]

Most run as first responders, but not all run ALS transports.

 

[hiegtx]

Most of the larger departments in Dallas County have EMS divisions with ALS response. A few smaller suburbs contract out to private entities, but provide first responders.
In Tarrant County, Fort Worth Fire Dept operates as first responders, with ALS response handled by Medstar.
The more rural counties, which are mostly volunteer, generally have first responders, & may contract with a private company to provide EMS transportation, which is not always ALS capable. The more critical calls often get handled by one of several helicopter air ambulance agencies based in this area.

 

[BoxAlarm187]

Fire-based EMS is very popular in our area, but there are still a great number of volunteer rescue squads that provide patient transport.

At work, we provide ALS/BLS first-responder and ALS/BLS transport using 20 engine companies and 11 (soon to be 12) ALS ambulances. We're supplimented by three volunteer rescue squads within the county. We swap back and forth between the supression rigs and the ambulances.

In my volunteer county, the FD only provides BLS first responder. Transports are provided by the volunteer rescue squad, a completely seperate organization.

Hope this helps...

 

[mikie333]

Do most fire departments have an EMS Division? Or do they have it seperate from thier fire department? A city I live by thier EMS is ran out of thier station.

in my city, firefighters are required to be paramedics...so all EMS units are ALS and ALCS equiped. Best of both worlds!

also, for the smaller municipalities, if they are too small for an EMS unit (ambulance), they use a private company (who only employs paramedics) BUT , the firetrucks carry full ALS suplies in the mean time! so, still, everyone is covered!

 

[loumaag]

Certainly it depends on how things evolved over time. In lots of places the fire department is involved, in some they have nothing to do with it. New Orleans is an example of the latter. In the late 1960's when EMS started to be something separate from just transport from a scene with a couple of ambulance attendants, New Orleans started with two "Rescue/Medical" units run by the Police Dept. (Can you imagine, two for the entire city of NOLA!.) This grew out to a separate EMS department. You may have seen this organization on the TV show Code Blue. They have basically a green and white color scheme and green/white strobes. (Police = blue / Fire = Red) I have no idea what is happening there now (post Katrina) but I would suspect it is much the same.

Here in Houston, the Fire Department handles both BLS & ALS services and transport with coordination to LifeFlight if necessary.

 

[vs1988]

My town runs PD as medical first responders, since all officers are trained as MRTs. Our EMS organization is volunteer, with paid medics. We run two rigs which can be BLS or ALS, as well as a paramedic flycar. Most of the firefighters are trained as MRTs as well but do not respond to EMS calls.

There seems to be a great debate over whether EMS should be a part of the FD, or as a seperate agency. The pro is that you can have firefighters responding to medical emergencies as well as fire/rescues. The con is that not all FFs want to be EMTs, and not all EMTs want to be FFs.

I like the way my town has it set up for the PD to be first responders. It seems to make more sense in terms of response (our FD is volunteer and FFs respond from home to the stations). Furthermore, it seems less "cluttered" when you have a police cruiser, the medic flycar, and the rig parked out in the road than having two engines and the EMS vehicles there.

VS

 

[columbus_east]

Quick question: what do the acronyms BLS and ALS stand for?

 

[K4ASJ]

BLS Stands For Basic Life Support Which Is Like First Aid
ALS Stands For Advanced Life Support Which Is A Higher Level Of Care

 

[hoser147]

In the department Im retired from all Fulltime Firefighters were required to be Paramedics however our auxillary only had to be Basic EMTs. As of recently a private company has been running their private calls mostly to Nursing homes and from the reports Im hearing they are running hot and starting IVs to charge more for ALS than just doing a basic transport. The funny part is they have no station within 2 counties of hear and been parking their rig in the State Park and werent paying to camp. Park officers after a couple of warnings had a wrecker come in and Impounded their Ambulance........hoser147

 

[vs1988]

BLS Stands For Basic Life Support Which Is Like First Aid
ALS Stands For Advanced Life Support Which Is A Higher Level Of Care

Yep, BLS units are generally run by EMT-basics while ALS are Paramedics, or 1 Medic and EMTs. There is also an Intermediate level run by EMT-Is, but there aren't too many of those around where I am.

 

[scanfan03]

Here in Houston, the Fire Department handles both BLS & ALS services and transport with coordination to LifeFlight if necessary.

In unicorperated Harris County, most of the VFDs and EMSs are different (The only exception I know of is Cy-Fair). All of the EMS departments run ALS ambulances only.

 

[kingpin]

My dept, we do not do any emergency care. We have a top notch ambulance service that is dispatched from 911 along with our department and they generally get there at the same time we do if not sooner. In some of the paid departments here in the area, you have to at least have your EMT basic and some you have to be a full fledged paramedic. Neither of which did I care to pursue. No money in any of it really. You gotta do it for the love of the game.