The numbers are in for 2015. Chesterfield Fire & EMS answered 39,000 plus calls for service, where greater than 75 percent of the calls for service were medical in nature. The greatest number of fire-related calls was alarm activations. The greatest number of medical incidents was difficulty breathing. What do these numbers mean for you and I versus what do these numbers mean for firefighters? In this article, I will only skim the surface of what the numbers can teach us.
The first thing that we see is that calls for service have increased, and I do not expect them to go down. An increased call for service brings many other increases. There are increases in operational costs and increased wear and tear on equipment and personnel. As the numbers continue to go up, administrators are tasked with figuring out how to pay for the service that is being requested. To us, the citizens of Chesterfield County, we have to understand that nothing is free. We may think that we pay enough taxes in Chesterfield, but are we doing our part to fund the level of service that we expect? I see every locality around us recouping some of their costs through a meal tax. We did ourselves a tremendous injustice when we voted down the meal tax. This would have been a relatively inexpensive way for every person that goes out to eat in Chesterfield to pay for increased calls for service. Instead, we are funding calls for service for others every time that we eat a meal in localities surrounding Chesterfield.
To say that greater than 75 percent of the calls for service were medical in nature, this equates to 7.5 out of every 10 calls being medical. I am thankful that Chief Robert L. Eanes was a visionary leader. He saw the need for Chesterfield to move in this direction, leading to the first firefighters being trained as Emergency Medical Technicians in the 1970s. The work was done off of engines and trucks for many years. In other words, a fire engine or ladder truck would respond with a volunteer ambulance, in the beginning. Today’s fire service in Chesterfield has an ambulance in fire stations 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 and 21. Though some of the ambulances are not 24-hour ambulances, coverage has increased drastically, over the years. The four volunteer ambulances: Bensley Bermuda, Ettrick-Matoaca, Manchester and Forest View still respond to calls for service, as well. Firefighters on engines and trucks are, at a minimum, EMTs, with some engines staffed as advanced life support, with EMT-Intermediates and Paramedics. I, again, attribute this to a visionary fire chief, from many years ago.
So what about the call types that are infrequently responded to, such as an emergent childbirth? For firefighters, proficiency is maintained through training. Every aspect of the emergency medical field is covered in annual training for both advanced life support providers and basic life support providers. It is just like the hazardous materials incident, the dive incident or the technical rescue incident, each of these calls for service has a specialty team, but all firefighters have to be proficient at some level of operations. The frequency of responding to these calls are much lower, but still require a high level of skill and expertise that is acquired through training.
In conclusion, these numbers tell us that most of our requests for service will be for medical reasons. Are we ready for an engine or ambulance to respond to our home? Are the numbers legible on our mailbox or house? If we live off of the roadway a distance, how will emergency responders find us? Can emergency vehicles make it all the way down our driveway? All of these things must be considered in our preplanning. The less that emergency responders are able to do, the more that we must do. Living out is OK, but realize that comes with challenges. Proximity to services and hospitals affects critical times, as well as extended transport times. It is important to realize that we all have a part to play in this equation, from the initial request for service to the successful completion of that request.
