The frustration of giving mutual aid

[calhobs 110]

I know the topic of mutual aid has been beaten to death here, but the last two subjects I have kept my mouth shut on it because I had noting nice to say about it, well now its still not nice, but should still be within the boards rules.

I don’t mind giving mutual aid, but this is when the problems come in. When we are on the third call to you area for the day for the third my toe hurts take me to the hospital call, and the car accident comes in as we are leaving the hospital and then you get out, the other problem is thanksgiving night as We are sitting down with our families and on the way to the call as we pass your quarters a full crew is sneaking out of your building, the family of the patent complains to us that we took so long to get to them when sometimes we are the 3rd or 4th ambulance called and the family never looks at the side of the ambulance or our uniforms to see where we came from. We just tell them sorry we are covering the area tonight for such and such Corp, and we had a hard time finding you, Just to make you look good. When we get dispatched to a call by an outside dispatch such as 60 control or Mount Pleasant Police and we are on scene for ten minutes and you show up with your crew and accuse us for buffing your call. These are some of the problems we have run into many times. These are the problems that start to make member not want to come out anymore, basically taking advantage of the mutual that is provided to you.

We use to do so much mutual aid to our town and to towns outside our area our motto was have ambulance, will travel. Now we have seen many agencies in our town change, some have gotten better, and some have gotten good. Basically what keeps our members coming is if we don’t then, who will.

[firemoose827 324]

Sounds like you have it worse than we do...The thanksgiving thing actually happened??? Thats ridiculous, that full crew you saw leaving the station should be ashamed of themselves and never be able to pridefully wear a uniform again.

I have experienced the same as you...I rode on 2 calls in a 12 hour period MA to our neighbor who failed to get anyone both times. Both calls were little old ladys who were lonely and wanted attention....sniffles for one and belly ache for the other...as we cleared the ER of the last call heading for home the other agency was again toned out...this time for a 2 car MVA with serious PI...no sooner did I pick up the mic to tell dispatch we were available and could respond, the agency acknowledged the call!! I wrote a letter to the chief of their dept and never got any kind of response back. It frustrates me to all hell having that happen....Im here to help people, regardless of the "Nature of the call", I respond if I am available. It sickens me to know that certain EMS providers pick and choose their calls and abuse their bretheren who answer their calls for them MA.

Dont know if I should say good post.....or now look what you have done!!!

Stay Safe

Moose

[x635 4,066]

This is just another reason why it should be a Countywide EMS system. So that staffing and equipment can be evenly and appropritely distributed and logistics managed through a central resource. No need for repetive mutual aid to another district, or the same 5 or 6 people being the backbone of an agency, and especially no more delayed responses. By all agencies working together, and agreeing on a standard response and response time of a fully staffed TRANSPORTING AMBULANCE and, if not ALS already, an ALS unit. We're wasting money and time with band-aid patchwork. We need to all come together to realize that the synergy of working together would greatly improve response and transport times, and make more ambulances available to the county. We need to admit our faults, and pressure our legislators into making a system like this happen.

A hybrid, Career-Volunteer system status managment system would work well, especially if all EMS Calls and response logistics were managed and prioritized through a central agency like 60 Control.

Mutual Aid is for the 1950's. When you have to call for it routinely, that mean's you can't handle your obligation to your community.

[orangEMT246 6]

Don't worry. Up in Dutchess county, the commercial service will cover your BLS slip and fall, then you can complain when the comercial service is out of units for the chest pain call that drops 5 minutes later.

[Guest beentheredonethat]

The real problem with mutual aid is when an ALS ambulance responds from two towns over and skips 2 AlS units doing nothing. I think we need to sometimes throw Contracts aside and rememer who we are really her for!!!! As we all know seconds count and that ALS unit doing nothing that is in the next town over would might make a difference in the patients outcome......

[Danger 160]

Don't worry. Up in Dutchess county, the commercial service will cover your BLS slip and fall, then you can complain when the commercial service is out of units for the chest pain call that drops 5 minutes later.

YES! Genius. Great post.

[xfirefighter484x 234]

Don't worry. Up in Dutchess county, the commercial service will cover your BLS slip and fall, then you can complain when the comercial service is out of units for the chest pain call that drops 5 minutes later.

[sarcasm] What are you talking about?? That NEVER happens!! [/sarcasm]

[Remember585 815]

It's hard to say what the solution is - but I think some people need to sit down and start working it out.

I agree that going Mutual Aid is frustrating at times, but RECEIVING IT on a regular basis is embarassing too.

[ems-buff 81]

This is just another reason why it should be a Countywide EMS system. So that staffing and equipment can be evenly and appropritely distributed and logistics managed through a central resource. No need for repetive mutual aid to another district, or the same 5 or 6 people being the backbone of an agency, and especially no more delayed responses. By all agencies working together, and agreeing on a standard response and response time of a fully staffed TRANSPORTING AMBULANCE and, if not ALS already, an ALS unit. We're wasting money and time with band-aid patchwork. We need to all come together to realize that the synergy of working together would greatly improve response and transport times, and make more ambulances available to the county. We need to admit our faults, and pressure our legislators into making a system like this happen.

A hybrid, Career-Volunteer system status managment system would work well, especially if all EMS Calls and response logistics were managed and prioritized through a central agency like 60 Control.

Mutual Aid is for the 1950's. When you have to call for it routinely, that mean's you can't handle your obligation to your community.

Saddly in a perfect world that might work, but we are haveing a hard enough time just trying to convince people to go to a more unitified dispatch system like up north. I forget who has that here dutchess or putnum 911?

[xfirefighter484x 234]

Saddly in a perfect world that might work, but we are haveing a hard enough time just trying to convince people to go to a more unitified dispatch system like up north. I forget who has that here dutchess or putnum 911?

As far as what do you mean unified? All commercial and public agencies are dispatched by Dutchess 911 up here, and from there, many commercial agencies have their own dispatch center.

Not to single them out, but Mobile Life, and I'm sure Alamo also runs a similar operation.

"DC911 to XYZ and Mobile Life, respond Priority 1 for a ...."

No specific unit gets dispatched. From there, the commercial agency dispatch center dispatches a unit for that call (hopefully the closest unit available).

Now if you are talking OVERALL unification, DC911 does Police, Fire, and EMS all through the same center. Different frequencies, yes, but same operations center.

Hopefully that is what you were referring to, otherwise, let me know and maybe I can clarify a bit more.

[ONEEYEDMIC 68]

The problem will always be that the VOLLIES don't want to give up their VAC's to paid people and the PAID companies don't want to merge because they will lose money.

After seeing the EMS SYSTEM in SC I came back here and asked why is this place so backwards. Then I thought to myself that it must be WESTCHESTER. This was probably 8-10yrs ago. I can agrue till the cows come home about a COUNTY wide system or even a FULLY PAID MT PLEASANT system and it won't do any good. My blood pressure will just go up.

How about all the VOLLIES on here be honest about how many times they couldn't get a crew out in a given year. Give the reasons and time of day that was. I know that I am going to figure it out on my end. Let's just see how bad it is.

[Guest]

And I thought Jersey was screwed up...Actually, what you are seeing is not far from the problems down here. Several towns in my area....including mine, have commercial ems/bls from 6a-6p and the vols nights and weekends. In my town, this caused the FD additional work for vehicle rescue and releived the vol bls of 800-900 runs a year. No biggie for us as the FD was usually out anyway. Another area bls run by the vol fd just adopted the same approach of having commercial bls from 6a-6p m-f. As I see it here, not much is going to change as long as the vol bls carries enough weight (i.e. political clout) to prevent it from changing.

[Fireman488 57]

The problem will always be that the VOLLIES don't want to give up their VAC's to paid people and the PAID companies don't want to merge because they will lose money.

After seeing the EMS SYSTEM in SC I came back here and asked why is this place so backwards. Then I thought to myself that it must be WESTCHESTER. This was probably 8-10yrs ago. I can agrue till the cows come home about a COUNTY wide system or even a FULLY PAID MT PLEASANT system and it won't do any good. My blood pressure will just go up.

How about all the VOLLIES on here be honest about how many times they couldn't get a crew out in a given year. Give the reasons and time of day that was. I know that I am going to figure it out on my end. Let's just see how bad it is.

I can't speak for other agencies.

But our all volunteer Fire/EMS Department covers its own runs. When we call for mutual aid, it is because our two rigs are on other runs.

Also, the bulk of our mutual aid runs are to assist a paid service.

Go figure!!!!

[Guest partyrock]

I've heard Elmsford come up in a couple different talks about response times. Always positive. So how do you guys do it? Is it just luck and you happen to have many dedicated members, is there crew assignments, crew quarters; whats the secret?

[huzzie59 75]

I've heard Elmsford come up in a couple different talks about response times. Always positive. So how do you guys do it? Is it just luck and you happen to have many dedicated members, is there crew assignments, crew quarters; whats the secret?

This is the real question. Where it works, how is it done?

[helicopper 1,050]

It's hard to say what the solution is - but I think some people need to sit down and start working it out.

I agree that going Mutual Aid is frustrating at times, but RECEIVING IT on a regular basis is embarassing too.

Remember hit the nail on the head! You have problems with a neighboring agency, sit down with them and discuss it. Work on a joint recruitment and training effort and you'll both benefit.

If they're unresponsive to your efforts or the problem persists, sit down with the elected officials of the town/village/city and inform them of the problem and seek their assistance in getting the problem children to the table. You can also send the phantom agency a bill for services provided to their area. If that fails too, draw a line in the sand and inform the agency and their town that you'll no longer respond mutual aid to them. A certain municipal FD did that because of perceived abuses to the mutual aid system.

Don't condemn me for not doing mutual aid, either, they're not your agency's calls though.

Personally, if I saw a crew sneaking out of their own building on Thanksgiving day, I would have driven up right to them rolled the window down and said "I guess since you're here you'll be covering YOUR call now, right". Let them look you in the eye and say no.

[Fireman488 57]

I've heard Elmsford come up in a couple different talks about response times. Always positive. So how do you guys do it? Is it just luck and you happen to have many dedicated members, is there crew assignments, crew quarters; whats the secret?

Thanks for the compliments.

How we do it? Dedicated members (especially those who are available during the day, a real core of good people).

As well as night time crews for Fire and EMS (11 pm to 6 am).

Thanks again for the kind words.

Stay safe.

[IzzyEng4 427]

I wasn't going to say something but I think I should since I work currently for C-MED New Haven.

First off a county or regional EMS system is necessary especially in this day and age. Our region covers 19 towns in New Haven County and Shelton in Fairfield County (we do not cover the northwestern towns on New Haven County near Waterbury they area in another region). We dispatch directly 4 municipal ambulance corps, the regional paramedic service for the lower Naugatuck Valley and three fire departments and the other towns we provide mutual aid coordination and ambulance to hospital patching. Our center handles over 90,000 per year. We also handle mutual aid response for ambulance and paramedic services from our area to the 4 other regions that boarder us as well and vice versa.

Our run cards are set up on alarm assignments and we give no more than six minutes before mutual aid is dispatched, then we go down the line. This is for all services (commercial, VAC's, Municipal, et. al.) and if an ambulance does not sign on, then we go mutual aid. For example, New Haven FD receives a 911 for a chest pain call, they dispatch the closest engine and one of their paramedic units, New Haven ERS calls C-MED to order an ambulance from AMR and log in the call into our system assigning a med number. Now the CFR engine, the paramedic and the ambulance (it may be an als or bls unit depending on availability) sign on with C-MED on Med 10 and we track their times on scene, enroute and arrival at the hospital. The responding engine or FD medic may give an update for the ambulance and goes through us either by going over MED 10, asking for a MED channel (ours have repeater capabilities) or over the phone. When the units need to parch, we assigned a MED Channel via the closest tower and area able to hook up any hospital. Simple as that.

Every agency has their problems whether it is AMR or a VAC, that is why we set up our CAD to send the closest unit if the primary is not available and if the unit does not sign on with us even though the commercial agency says they are, mutual aid is dispatched and if the original ordered signs on we find out their exact location and let the closest one proceed in.

The whole Idea is to make the agencies work together, not fight each other. If they have internal problems with responses or getting a crew, then the numbers and times show and that is when the state can step in and say WHAT THE?!?! Most of the VAC's in our area have paid day crews and some vol's are around during the day to supplement additional rigs if need be. If a service falls short, that is why we area there, to make sure that a patient gets the proper care. Agncies have to owrk on thier own internal problems.

[ems-buff 81]

Now if you are talking OVERALL unification, DC911 does Police, Fire, and EMS all through the same center. Different frequencies, yes, but same operations center.

Hopefully that is what you were referring to, otherwise, let me know and maybe I can clarify a bit more.

That is what I'm talking about. Does it work well, what are some pro's and con's of that kinda system.

[calhobs 110]

How about all the VOLLIES on here be honest about how many times they couldn't get a crew out in a given year. Give the reasons and time of day that was. I know that I am going to figure it out on my end. Let's just see how bad it is.

Your honest answer 0. Sleepy Hollow Ambulance Corp has not Missesd any calls in almost six years. That is including out going mutual aid and getting both rigs out 24/7. With an avg response time of four to five minutes.

[Remember585 815]

My question to Elmsford, Lewisboro and Sleepy Hollow is "How do you do it?"

I remember when we were batting 1000 ourselves, and I can nail what has caused it to go to a batting average closer to that of a struggling Yankee. I am dying to get some insight on how we can make it better.

Thanks.

[JJB531 652]

Kudos to Sleepy Hollow and Elmsford for their success at getting their rigs out the door... but, I think the issue is not just a matter of getting the bus out the door, but also the dependancy on certain individuals to get that ambulance out the door who have no business on an ambulance in the first place. Let's face it, EMS as a whole is struggling in this county, both paid and volunteer... this is no suprise to anyone. The turnover rate is very high amongst paid EMS providers who leave for civil service FD or PD jobs and use their EMS background for pocket money (as I do), and there are serious issues with recruitment and retention amongst the volunteer EMS sectors. Unfortunately, both paid and volunteer agencies have "employed" manpower who I wouldn't let touch my dog, but as long as the calls get covered and the ambulance gets out the door, well then in their eyes the problem has been solved.

I'm not here to pick on any one agency in particular, but I know of not just one, but a few agencies who depend on individuals who are 70, even 80+ years old to get the ambulance out the door... you have to be kidding me. It's all good and great that these individuals still have the motiviation and the faculties to be riding on an ambulance, but I don't understand how it is allowed. The liability is outrageous, having an 80 year old man driving the ambulance with a crew and patient to a hospital. I for one am not comfortable being in the back of that ambulance, nor would I be comfortable with someone old enough to be my grandfather trying to do a standing takedown on me.

And then there are agencies who take someone fresh out of EMT class, card still dripping wet with ink, and throw them on an ambulance as a crew chief without any orientation or field training just so they can get the ambulance out the door. I've helped instruct many EMT classes, as I'm sure many of you have also, and I think we can all say that the EMT classes in this area are, for the most part, a joke. I'm not talking about the instructors or the delivery of the information, but there is no significant amount of time allotted to field training while EMT students are enrolled in the course. The trial by fire method in this line of work just doesn't cut it, and it is unsafe to take someone with zero field experience and throw them to the wolves. I spoke with a coworker the other day who told me a story about a cardiac arrest recently where a new EMT (who had an attitude that he/she had 10 years experience) basically froze up and couldn't deliever medical care. And yet the agency he/she volunteers for wont' do anything about it because he/she is an active riding EMT.

Does this county need a solution to the abuse of mutual aid by certain agencies and inability of certain agencies to cover the calls in their respective district... absolutely. But I think that some agencies, both paid and volunteer, appear to be doing a good job because the ambulances are getting out, but the caliber of individuals staffing these vehicles is on the decline, so I often question if it's just safer paying the 10 bucks for a cab to gimme a lift the ER.

[Goose 188]

JJB531 brings up a valid point.

A large majority of volunteer organizations rely on the same 6, 10, or 15 people to handle the call volume. While this helps to feed the numbers game, it doesn't help to address the larger and looming problem at hand.

The biggest problem with many agencies is their general lack of experience. Having someone who's written a PCR once or twice from an agency who does 300 calls a year QA/QI paperwork doesn't fly. Leadership can fall victim to similar problems as well.

I can recall the worst instance I've witnessed quite clearly. I was at the ER consulting w/ my partner while writing paperwork and about 5 people in shorts and flip flops jumped out of the back of an ambulance and wheeled in an individual who was expired for the better part of the day. The crew was comprised of 2 or 3 EMTs who had just graduated and a one or two observers. They got the call to the residence, never bothered to preform an assessment on the guy, threw him in the truck and took off. Intercepted with our medics, one jumped in the back - the crew was doing CPR the whole time, the goes to throw a tube in and the guy's jaw wouldn't budge, goes to his hands and they are clamped. Medic tells everyone to stop, calls the ER and explains that they are coming in with a DOA. Now an entire grieving family has to make the treck to the ER. At the end of it all, nothing was done to offer these individuals remediation and there still on the road today.

[Guest]

I will say it again the answer is simple. a persons life should not depend on who wants to come out and play, or should it depend on some one who profit is number one or it being an add on to another job description. EMS is the answer, I cant believe that this is an issue who picks and choose's what calls they go on, I wanna go and have thanksgiving with my family, I saw them hiding it's not fair WAAAAA. We need to stand up TOGETHER and scream it so everyone hears us. The people of this County deserve a 24/7/365 trained proffesional career EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICE, not a service that is fragmented and depends on who wants to, in their spare time mind you, come out and play or a service that does the bare minimum with the bare minimun to keep the corprate's country club dues up to date it also does not deserve some who does it because it was tacked on to their job description to keep the numbers up.I am sure I will be reprimanded for my opinion for being anti-whoever, I am not, I am just PRO-EMS run by EMS, supervised by EMS, dispatched by EMS, trained by EMS I think you get the picture.....................