Some points that might make it a little clearer as to why firetrucks respond so frequently:[ul][li]It makes sense not to take a 911* caller’s word for the extent of the situation. Perhaps the caller is not aware of all of the ramifications of a given emergency, or isn’t aware of the extent of a situation[]Fire trucks, being bigger, carry a wider variety of gear, allowing them to be more flexible in dealing with whatever the situation is[]As pointed out above, geographically, it might be more likely that a firetruck can arrive on the scene first[/ul][/li]
Yes, if it gets dirty. I’m in a rural volunteer firehouse, and if there’s obvious dirt or mud on a piece of equipment after a call, it gets washed. If there’s a bunch of people helping, you can do it pretty quickly.
The OP has pretty much been answered, so I can only reiterate what’s been said. Around here, firefighters are usually EMT-B’s, not paramedics (but some are). They’re considered First Responders, and depending on where the ambulance is, the engine will make it there before the medic. We have ambulances in all the firehouses here (career stations have two ambulances each). If an ambulance is on the way back from the hospital, the engine can get there first and start assessing the patient. In my county, 80% of 911 calls are medical calls. Better to get someone there to start treatment if the medic is going to be a few more minutes.
If there’s an accident, they’ll be needed for traffic control and special equipment and tools. If it’s a matter of moving a 300-pound patient down three flights of stairs, they’re extra hands.
When I was at Texas A&M (and probably still the case now), the ambulance crews and dispatchers were all unpaid volunteers (full-time college students with a passing GPA was the requirement at Texas A&M for their EMS service). In return, they got trained and certified for free, and got job experience they could use after graduation to get a job.
Now, they worked 12 hour shifts, but still had to go to classes, eat food, etc. The solution? Take the ambulance to class with you. So you’d see the ambulance parked in various random places around campus outside of buildings not doing anything because one of the guys had a class or exam he had to go to. If there was a call, the dispatcher would call him on his radio, and he’d just grab his stuff and run from class to the ambulance and go deal with it.
I figure, similarly, if there was a fire, or another medical emergency, or whatever, then they could re-dispatch one or several of the trucks that responded to the first emergency without them having to go back to the station. Hell, the firetruck could be parked out at Spangles with all the firefighters getting burgers for lunch and it wouldn’t affect the truck’s ability to respond to an emergency, thanks to the 21st century miracle of wireless radios (said in the style of one of those 1940’s television narrators)
Also, in the cases of EMT training for us, they basically told us if there was any trouble Get the Firefighters in there first or the police in there first to deal with it before sending in the precious little EMT’s
If we feel unsure about what’s going on, we were told always just call for backup or check if it’s en route. And, fire trucks are GREAT at blocking/diverting traffic if you have a possibility of a car accident on a highway. So if you know you’re going to a car crash, but you don’t have all the info- might as well call the boys in red to help you out just in case if you need the Jaws, the big truck and hose (As in my state it’s illegal to drive over a fire truck’s hose, so it’s a great way to block a lane off), or if you just think you’ll need an extra pair of hands on the job.
It’s better to have it and not need it, rather than to show up and realize “oh crap…”
That’s pretty much what we have at my firehouse. No dedicated ambo, but we have an EMS support vehicle, or chase vehicle, as it’s sometimes called. We can do everything but transport a patient. There have been times we’ve gotten a patient extricated, stabilized, boarded and packaged - all ready to go by the time the ambo gets there.
Yep, yep. I was involved in a car crash last Wednesday in a very busy intersection during rush hour traffic. The fire department was there in less than 5 minutes, blocked traffic since both cars were pretty much totaled and immovable, checked out the other driver and myself, disconnected the battery on the other car since the front end was gone and had both of us safe and sound on the curb before the ambulance and police arrived.
They were able to send the ambulance off to more important incidents and allowed the police to get right to business.
If the fire department had not been there as quickly as they were and blocked off our cars from traffic, I have absolutely no doubt that there very well could have been more cars involved.
While there is much merit to what has been posted thus far, there’s a more cynical reason. Here in San Diego, and I’m sure in other cites, the emergency response parameters are established by the firefighters union. The more equipment sent translates into it being replaced more often, the more people (jobs) are required to man the equipment, the more jobs, etc.
Last year my wife was having chest pains. We called 911. At one point there were 4 vehicles parked out front and 9 firemen/EMTs in the house.
One other thing to consider is those combined dispatches (at least in my area) were only for life threating emergencies. If someone called 911, and told the dispatcher their friend fell and broke his ankle but was alert, not an open fracture, etc then fire would not be dispatched, only the ambulance.
When you do have a patient down hard, maintaining compressions and ventilations, loading onto a gurney, carrying down a stairwell, beomes a 4-5 man job. A couple extra bodies to hold doors, carry out all the gear , manage IV bags and 7-8 starts being reasonable.
Also, fire is often only there for a few min, and they are off. If a call does come in for a fire you will see them run for their engines. They also generally do not respond to medical aids outside of their designated response area. Fire engines are decent sprinters but their response times are based on strategic placement, not raw speed.
Here in Los Angeles, an engine (not to be confused with a truck, which in reality is a ladder truck) is dispatched to all calls along with the ambulance, ALS, BLS, whatever. Hangnails won’t stop them from coming.
Oftentimes the engine will show up before the ambulance, as noted earlier ambulances are out on the road a great deal more. They will stabilize the patient until they can be transported. Oftentimes there is still work to be done after the patient has been loaded and transported, I would not want to have to wait for the pair-of-medics to take care of all that before carting me off to the hospital for additional care.
Fire stations are specifically situated so that there is coverage of every neighborhood. Ambulance services are not.
Ambulance services are for transporting patients, not necessarily to respond to emergencies.
In the OP it seems that the fire station had both an ambulance and fire trucks, so I’m not sure why they sent out the truck first. Maybe because firemen are trained to very quickly respond to emergency calls (that whole pole thing).
This is absolutely right. Many fire departments respond on medical calls because they want the run numbers to keep their funding up. If there aren’t enough ambulances, the solution should be to spend more money to add ambulances, not send fire trucks to everything.
There are very few calls where the extra manpower is needed- cardiac arrests, patients who need advanced airway management, very heavy patients, and patients who are difficult to extricate.
Firemen show first because they have the “universal key”
This varies heavily by jurisdiction, in my area ambulances are all private companies, and fire is more first responder centric. Last
I heard the local FD was moving away from encouraging paramedic training and or staffing apparatus with at least one paramedic each. Costs for additional gear and ongoing training were cited as reasons.
This depends on where you live.
Here in Baltimore County, emergency services are covered by both volunteer and career stations. We also have private ambulance services for non-emergency transports.
The career fire stations all have two ambulances staffed 24 hours a day. Most, but not all, volunteer stations have one ambulance. The vollie stations call in to Dispatch to let them know the level of staffing they have for their medic at any given time (paramedic, EMT-Intermediate or basic EMT).
The career stations used to have one medic, then went to an additional medic staffed just during the day, and several years ago, went to having two full-time medic crews due to the high volume of medical calls.
I know Orlando FD washes their vehicles every day. It’s mainly a public image/professional pride thing. They say that the taxpayers pay for their truck, they figure it’s their job to keep it clean.
Here in Seattle (which has excellent emergency responders, by some measures the best in the world), there are minimum response teams. There is a city ordinance that dictates that every response must include a certain number of vehicles (2, I think) and a certain number of men (5, I think) at a minimum.
So some stations only keep enough for a single response, others have 2 or three teams. Because there are far fewer Medic-1 ambulances and paramedics, this all means that other fire equipment will be used on any response of any kind.
And, while the trucks are excessive on a medical response, every one of them comes in handy for a large fire. So they have to keep them around, and can’t just spend the money on more medic vehicles.
I lived in northwest Baltimore County for many years, until we moved two years ago. I was also an avid scanner listener. Have they really increased every paid station to two medics? Just of the top of my head, I remember that stations 2, 3, 14, and 18 each had one medic. In fact, I remember when stations 2, 3 and 19 didn’t even have their own medic units.
That’s pretty much what we have at my firehouse. No dedicated ambo, but we have an EMS support vehicle, or chase vehicle, as it’s sometimes called. We can do everything but transport a patient. There have been times we’ve gotten a patient extricated, stabilized, boarded and packaged - all ready to go by the time the ambo gets there.