Perrysburg Twp, Rossford buy 'I Am Responding'

[cb225662]

Firefighters 'respond' to new emergency technology

Perrysburg Twp, Rossford buy 'I Am Responding'

Updated: Friday, 19 Aug 2011, 12:23 AM EDT
Published : Friday, 19 Aug 2011, 12:23 AM EDT
Sharia Davis
FOX Toledo News reporter



PERRYSBURG TOWNSHIP, Ohio (WUPW) - Perrysburg Township firefighters have invested in new technology to dispatch emergency personnel to an accident scene more quickly.

Fire Chief Tom Brice said "I Am Respoding" is playing a big role in his department when his staff responds to fires, heart attacks and other emergencies.

I Am Responding is a program for firefighters to check in when there's an emergency. It's a tool all fire departments should take advantage of, Chief Brice added.

"It's amazing how it works," he said. "The guys hit a speed dial on their phone and within seconds it's popping up on the screen."

The Internet-based program allows the chief and his staff to see which firefighter or paramedic is responding to an emergency.

"That allows us to know if we're going to need additional resources in the form of mutual aid quicker and it allows us to get those resources on the road quicker," Chief Brice said.

With 18 full-time firefighters and 25 volunteers, the chief said before the system he had no way of telling who was out on a call.

"Sometimes it worked out in our favor and sometimes we weren't so lucky," Chief Brice said.

Perrysburg Township has used the program since May 201. The city of Rossford purchased the system a while back, and Chief James Verbosky said I am Responding is a huge benefit for the public.

 

[bge1234]

I'm confused. Are they saying that without this system, they have no way of knowing which units were dispatched on a call? Who decides which units respond, then?

 

[cb225662]

I'am Responding

This is a Volunteer FD The volunteer's call in on the way to station, the cheif can see who is comming and asign duties for that volumteer,or volunteers He {The Cheif} can also see how many volunteers he has responding if not enough he can call for mutal aid from other cities in area.

 

[bge1234]

That makes more sense. Thank you.

 

[cb225662]

Fd Volunteer's

With vounteers you never know who is Responding, causing delays with equipment and so on the Chief or charge person Know's Faster what to do. For asigning duties or mutalaid call

 

[Jay911]

It's a very slick system. My department has used it for years. Go to IamResponding.com - Know Immediately who is responding to your dispatch as soon as the pagers go off! and click on the link at right to view a demo video.

 

[Intellifax]

Its a good idea, and is in response to a recent incident at another nearby fire department in the same county. A rescue call went unanswered for an extended amount of time and the person died. There is now a large lawsuit filed by the surviving wife over the incident.

 

[KD8CES]

What happened to two way radios to call "enroute" to dispatch????? SD

 

[Rob_K]

What happened to two way radios to call "enroute" to dispatch????? SD

This system is for the personnel responding to the station. I don't know about the rest of the country but we don't have the funds to issue every member their own radio. They "sign on" once on the apparatus. Need to know who is coming to man apparatus.

 

[Jay911]

That's not the issue. Look at the video on the link I posted. Many volunteer departments stand around for some time not knowing if sufficient crew is coming to the station. I can get to the station (or, even slicker, I can just look on my phone's web browser) and know if there are others joining me or if I should get Dispatch to page again (or page another department for backup). This saves many minutes. Instead of waiting 5 to 7 minutes to see if anyone is going to show up, within 90 seconds I can know what my staffing is at and if I need to take action.

 

[wa8pyr]

That's not the issue. Look at the video on the link I posted. Many volunteer departments stand around for some time not knowing if sufficient crew is coming to the station. I can get to the station (or, even slicker, I can just look on my phone's web browser) and know if there are others joining me or if I should get Dispatch to page again (or page another department for backup). This saves many minutes. Instead of waiting 5 to 7 minutes to see if anyone is going to show up, within 90 seconds I can know what my staffing is at and if I need to take action.

And when the cell phone networks die during a major emergency, so much for "I Am Responding."

It's a great idea under normal circumstances, but placing total reliance on the availability of the cell phone network is unwise. If this thing becomes unavailable during an emergency, do they have a backup plan in place? If department personnel get so accustomed to having this tool available that they won't know what to do without it, the results would be unpleasant to say the least.

Of course, the bigger problem is the almost total reliance so many people place these days on the cell phone network, which is nearly always one of the first things to fail in a major emergency.

 

[CVPI4Ever]

Please include a link in the OP

 

[Jay911]

And when the cell phone networks die during a major emergency, so much for "I Am Responding."

It's a great idea under normal circumstances, but placing total reliance on the availability of the cell phone network is unwise. If this thing becomes unavailable during an emergency, do they have a backup plan in place? If department personnel get so accustomed to having this tool available that they won't know what to do without it, the results would be unpleasant to say the least.

Of course, the bigger problem is the almost total reliance so many people place these days on the cell phone network, which is nearly always one of the first things to fail in a major emergency.

IAR doesn't have any dependence on cellular networks. It's a website and an 800 number. People can register up to six phones of any kind - cell, landlines, etc - to be "their" numbers in IAR.

People in this thread appear to be missing the point of IAR. It's not replacing anything already in existence. It's a tool to assist responders in knowing if they have fellow responders coming to the station (or scene) or not. If the cellular network happens to fail and those people who normally phone in on the cellular network can't do so (and don't have landline phones registered in their profiles), the only thing that would happen is that another page might go out asking for more responders, or dispatch might send a different crew. Relying on this system means that you get an idea of who has heard the page and is coming to the call. If you don't get that, you just .... do what we did before this system existed: Wait and see who shows up. You don't have to have a backup plan, and you don't have to worry about "knowing what to do" if you don't have it. There have been a couple days in the past year or two when our Internet connection at the firehall was down, so that meant no IAR screen. Oh well. Park the truck on the ramp and wait for the responders to arrive. We just didn't know when that might be. With IAR, you can tell that you should get 2 more people within 5 minutes and a third within 7 or 8. If you don't have that knowledge, nothing bad happens.

You nay-sayers are trying to find evil, bad things about this system where there are none. If you don't have it, you just fall back to how things were done before it existed. It's not replacing any procedures that were done some other way in the past.

 

[Firefox77]

Who's Responding

My department recently signed on with Who's Reaponding. The system is incredibly easy to use, the screen shows exactly what we need,we can get reports of who's responded to what call. We love the text feature that allows those ago to directly to scene to provide us with updates and there's even a courtesy notification to let my family know that I've gone to a call. It's an amazing system that works incredibly well. With the GPS locator we can see how far out members are when they're heading to the station and the service with who's responding has been top notch. We are very impressed and would recommend it to any volunteer department.