Observation - Orlando/Orange County and Americal Medical Response

[batdude]

I will admit --- I do not monitor the OC trunking system regularly.

That said -- I was playing around with DSD+ today and listening to one of the Suntalk Connect+ DMR sites...

Highland Wireless - Suntalk Linked System (470 Connect Plus) Site: Orlando (Nova)

Highland Wireless - Suntalk Linked System (470 Connect Plus) Site: Orlando (Nova) Details

www.radioreference.com

Of note - TG 2010 is Orlando dispatch for AMR and is quite active. This is not an encrypted TG.

Of particular note --- one of their units was dispatched to Universal Studios today for an "unknown injury" at Universal Studios - Gate 3 - "Production Studio".

Interesting to me because (a) I didn't know that AMR was that well integrated into the Orange Co. medical dispatch system - and (b) with Universal Studios being 100% encrypted (well, 99% anyway) - this was an interesting catch.

I would be curious to hear from the monitoring gang over in OC exactly how this works between the county and AMR.

Questions like:

1. Does OC 911 dispatch AMR squads? If so - how do they do that? It's obviously not on the Connect+ system mentioned above.
2. What role does AMR play in the overall 911 schema of OC? Are they secondary to the OCFR EMS units?
3. Does AMR have OC P25 radios in their squads to communicate with the various hospitals?


TIA

doug

 

[WX4JCW]

Ok Here is the Scoop, I started my EMS/Fire Career at AMT (American Medical Transport) Which was formerly Herndon Ambulance, and eventually became Rural/Metro Ambulance then when RM went Bankrupt AMR took over then I moved to OCFR in the early 2000s before retiring.

Let's address #1. OCFR does not dispatch AMR, they are usually dispatched by HQ on Old winter garden road, however, sometime after I left they moved 911 operations to the OFD Comm Center, they still dispatch Non-Emergency calls at OWG HQ as far as I know.

this is very complicated because there is a ton of bad blood between OCFR and RMA/AMR, and OCFR Took over all 911 transports in the county in the early 2000s and when I say bad blood I mean bad blood. so this addresses #2 OCFR grudgingly allows AMR on their radios for FIre 11 as AMR has a contract with Ocoee and Winter Garden Fire who are dispatched by the county, so that's the extent of AMR's involvement with the county, which answers #3. they have P25 radios for Medcom and Fire 11 and OFD which I will address. OCFR will never work with AMR again in a 911 capacity in the rest of the county.

Orlando still has a 911 contract with AMR, this happened after I went to OCFR, and after I retired, Orlando has Transport units but OFD also now dispatches all the AMR 911 units from the Comm Center at the Executive Airport. and from what I hear they may post at stations ( we used what was called "System Status" to dispatch i.e all the ambulances were not housed in stations, they would post to spots selected around the county, usually a parking lot or something, and these postings would change depending on the time of day and the number of units in the system available).

AMR also does the transport for GOAA, they receive those calls at the OWG HQ via a direct line to GOAA

we used to have medics working off duty at Universal, we had a pretty good relationship with them

some other interesting tidbits

When I was there we had to be on scene from the time the call was received within 10 minutes and 30 seconds 90% of the time, if we did not RMA had to pay a fine, this was watched with much scrutiny.

 

[W4KRR]

Apparently AMR has multiple TG's in the 2000 range on the Highland Wireless trunked DMR system. I regularly hear calls on TG 2010 even though I am in south Florida. I know it's a linked system, but I don't know why I should be hearing users in the Orlando area, which is 200 miles from me.

 

[WX4JCW]

Apparently AMR has multiple TG's in the 2000 range on the Highland Wireless trunked DMR system. I regularly hear calls on TG 2010 even though I am in south Florida. I know it's a linked system, but I don't know why I should be hearing users in the Orlando area, which is 200 miles from me.

they could have a unit on a transport down there, it does happen, and up to the North Florida Reception Center (Prison)

in reality, 911 transports don't make a lot of profit for these companies, but interfacility transports do

 

[WX4JCW]

Another thing I thought of, when OFD dispatches AMR they have an AMR ID like "AMR 123" you will also hear Medics Dispatched, these are actual OFD Medic units that will transport