terminology.

[Q-ball]

I was listening to a vehicle resue in skippack twp. just a few mins ago, and i heard medics as county if any helos were up and available due to the weather, county replied medevac 3 was available, anyway,s county asked "are u requesting a direct fly or stand-by"...i guess i never paid that much attention to it before, but im assuming direct fly means pretty much to immediately go airborn, the flight's a go....as appose to standing by to see if a flight will be needed, any insight?

secondly, If all the ems services in montco are ALS, then whats the point of even having BLS units anymore, when an als truck can do just about everything, why send a bls unit when they can only do so much?...and is the same tru for phila, and the surrounding counties as far as als and bls?...are the medics in philly als units?....delco?..chesco?....

 

[CommJunkie]

You are correct about the helos terminology. Stand by is "We might need you, get ready in case we say go". Direct fly is "We need you to go now".

 

[DELCOLHFC]

I'm only on the Fire/Rescue side, never been involved much on the EMS end of the biz. But BLS does still serve a function as not all calls are ALS. If the patient is not an ALS case it makes more sense to cart them off in a BLS rig than to tie up a Medic unit on the transport, this leaves the Medic bus available for additional (potentially ALS) calls.
Am the above Helo explanation is correct, around these parts anywhy....

 

[fathead]

Many squads run ALS and BLS trucks. Some run BLS trucks during peak times while others have one on status round the clock. There are many types of calls that can be handled by a BLS truck (subject in pain, fall victim-non trauma, fire stand by etc) freeing up a medic to handle true ALS emergencies.