Fire EMS Operations

By Steven A. Pollio, Fire Chief, City of Coconut Creek

Some of you may be surprised to learn that in Coconut Creek, as well as nationally, approximately 85% of the calls that fire departments respond to are medical calls. Medical calls include illnesses and injuries. That means that only 15% of all fire responses are fire related type calls. The exception of course would be those large cities with old high rise buildings and high population densities. Therefore, statistically speaking, it is not surprising that the name “Fire Department” is more and more often being exchanged for the name “Fire Rescue Department”.

When I started my fire service career in 1977, fire departments and EMS services were often separate agencies or divisions. The public had an image of firefighters, who were then called firemen, sitting in the fire station playing checkers all day. Back then, even those departments that had fire and EMS responsibilities, generally dispatched fire engines only on fire calls. As call loads increased and budgets tightened, personnel were cross trained in fire and EMS.

Today, the vast majority of fire rescue systems provide both fire suppression and EMS services, which in many cases include patient transportation to the hospital. With high call loads, equipment maintenance, fire training, EMS training, and building familiarization, the days of checkers are long gone.

Residents often ask why a fire engine was dispatched to someone who got hurt or sick. The answer is that since both EMS rescue units and fire engines are staffed and equipped with firefighter paramedics, and advanced life support equipment, we are able to dispatch the closest available unit. In the case of a medical call where a fire engine is the closest unit, that engine and a rescue unit will be dispatched. The engine, because it was closer, can shave valuable minutes off of the response time, and begin stabilizing the patient before the rescue arrives.

So how important is reducing the time from the onset of a medical emergency to treatment? I can tell you that if the medical emergency is one of a critical nature, there is nothing more important. The most dramatic example I can give you is in the case of a cardiac arrest. In this situation, the heart has stopped pumping oxygen rich blood to vital organs such as the brain. Without oxygen, the brain will begin dying in 4-6 minutes. Again, national statistics reflect that it takes an average of one minute to make a 911 call, and about another minute to dispatch the emergency call. National average response times are generally in the six minute range. From this example, you can see that saving critically ill patients is an uphill battle against time.

For this reason, our department strongly recommends that everyone take a CPR class. By learning CPR, you can begin life saving treatment even before the closest fire rescue units arrives. The Coconut Creek Fire Rescue Department encourages you to partner with us to save lives. We offer free CPR classes to all residents. For information, or to register for a CPR class, please CLICK HERE.