County fire districts use fire trucks for medical first responses
Shifting first response equipment from county-owned vehicles to fire trucks seems to be the trend.
Marion County Commission approved a memorandum agreement Monday, as presented by emergency medical services director Larry Larsen, that would allow Marion County Fire District #5 to use "Big Red" fire truck as its first response vehicle. If a driver is not available to operate the fire truck, then county dispatch will call out the next available unit to respond instead of having volunteers driving personal vehicles to emergency calls.
Larsen said he took the Lincolnville unit to Goessel for Goessel personnel to inspect and possibly replace their inadequate vehicle with the one no longer needed in Lincolnville.
The commission then was informed that Burns has been using county first response equipment in fire district vehicles because of a shortage of volunteers and substandard vehicles.
Larsen said the county-owned van that previously was used for first response had mechanical problems but it now was in working order. However, Burns first responders want to keep the county emergency equipment on the fire truck.
The commission instructed Larsen to continue to work with Burns and resolve the issue.
In other department business:
— Larsen told the commission that his department was no longer going to charge Marion County Sheriff's Department for transporting prisoners. Instead the EMS department would charge the patient. The commission was in agreement, especially now that a resolution had been adopted that charged prisoners a daily fee.
— The commission approved the quarterly write-off of those accounts that have not been paid for a total of $1,398.
— There were 54 calls in March.
Of those 54 calls, there were 10 each cardiac, medical emergencies, and falls, eight were transfers, seven standby, six no transports, two code black (death), and one turn around.
Marion responded to 23 calls, Hillsboro had 18, Peabody five, Florence, four, Tampa two, and Marion backup unit was dispatched twice.
Goessel first responders went out twice and Burns once. Marion rescue had one call.
