Why does the El Paso fire department send a pumper or quint along with an ambulance to many medical calls?
Common answers from people who do this for a living are:
- They often need the extra manpower to lift a patient since the ambulance only has two medics in it
- The pumper can get to the scene faster because there are more fire trucks than ambulances
- The extra people perform other services like traffic control
These are all valid responses. Could we do better?
Look at the physics
The United States department of transportation specifies that ambulances should be able to accelerate two miles per second up to 70 miles per hour. In other words they should be able to travel at two miles per hour one second after starting and at 30 miles per hour after 15 seconds.
I could not find a specification for fire pumpers but I did see a purchasing specification issued by an individual department. The requirement was that the pumper be able to get up to 30 miles per hour within 25 seconds.
An ambulance would be traveling at 50 miles per hour by then.
Remember that the pumper is not only bigger and heavier but may also be carrying 500 to 1800 gallons of water. I have seen pumper units trying to climb up neighborhood streets on the mountainsides of El Paso slow down to 2 miles per hour.
Manpower
Our fire stations in El Paso have different configurations. Some have pumpers, some pumpers and aerial units, some include ambulances, others have battalion commands or other special purpose units.
A basic station with a pumper and an ambulance has 5 firemen on duty each shift. Three are assigned to the pumper and two to the ambulance.
All three travel with the pumper. The rationale is that if the pumper needs to go to an actual fire, it can be ready without having to pick someone up. There is a movement to put four firefighters on each pumper that has not succeeded yet in El Paso.
We end up with five people and two trucks working the scene once the pumper gets there.
I have heard of a different technique. Here the department would have to buy an extra vehicle with each ambulance. The vehicle would be a pickup sized unit that would have the basic medical equipment but not be capable of transporting a patient.
A call would come in and the two medics would get in the smaller truck and head to the scene. A firefighter would get in the ambulance and drive it to the scene. The pickup should get there even faster than the ambulance. The medics could start their assessment and treatment sooner. The ambulance would get there in the same amount of time as the method we are using now. The pumper would stay at home.
What happens if a real fire call comes in while the firefighter is on scene with the medics? This happens on occasion now in that a call will come in while the pumper is at a medical scene. An officer (manager) must decide whether to leave the incident with only the medics there. If the pumper needs to go to the fire, the two firefighters that are still in the station head out with the pumper. The third one gets in the pickup and heads to the fire.
To be sure the pumpers need to be exercised. Sending them on some medical calls to assure that they are in a ready state makes sense to me.
I anticipate that some criticism to this post will come in. I welcome learning more about the situation and seeing if our technique can be improved.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
They do this because they wouldn’t have much of anything else to do since fires are no longer really a constant problem in modern society. About 20 years ago some academic did a study on how structures fires have changed given all we know about fire proof materials, fire safety education and uniform building codes that tie all of that together. He found at the time we had way more fire fighters than there will ever be fires. Guess what – we’re still expanding our fire fighting capabilities even as society is seeing exponentially less fires.
So, if our firefighters weren’t showing up at athsma attacks, they’d have nothing else to do.
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Clearly we need fewer Firefighters and more lobbyists/political operatives.
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We need more EMS ambulance service to get there quicker in case of a Heart or Asthma Attack! Until then a pumper is nice. Except for all the sirens at 2 AM……El Paso Fire & EMS are well trained.
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There was a medical emergency in my neighborhood the other night around 1:30 in the morning and they dispatched an ambulance and a fire truck. They got lost, and went down my one way street on the East side. Can you imagine all the noise they made with their sirens, and trying to back the fire truck out of that cul-de-sac? The had the whole neighborhood awake watching them trying to find the right house.
Overkill with too many vehicles? Maybe. Well trained? Maybe. But not being to find the right house is disturbing.
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being a fireman is no easy task; this I can assure
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being an El Paso taxpayer is also no easy task; this I can assure
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And I nominate FedUps comment here as the best of the day.
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Things used to be done that way…at least in Hollywood. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency! An old TV show where the two EMTs would respond ant typically be on-scene before the ambulance.
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Brutus, your comment are appropriate but why don’t you look at the cost of what is charged per EMS call & pickup ? It is not free medical and El Paso Fire/ EMS provides great emergency care!
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Haiduc,
Yes I agree that the EMS emergency care is very good (with a few exceptions).
They money they collect from patients or their insurance does not cover the cost of the service.
My point is that we might be able to save money and still give quality service by changing our technique.
Brutus
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