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Public Safety
Washington County-Johnson City EMS personnel cross train to operate fire pumps without sacrificing patient care By JULIE YOUNG | The Municipal
When it comes to fighting fires, every second counts. In order to improve response times, some Washington County, Tenn., volunteer fire departments are getting a little help from their friends — the Washington County-Johnson City EMS.
ABOVE and BELOW: LVFD and EMS Rescue Tech Ian Bradburn trains on pump operations and drafting. (Photo provided by Washington County-Johnson City EMS)
According to Dan Wheeley, NREMT-P, MBA, chief/executive director of the Washington County-Johnson City EMS, it is policy for one of the EMS rescue units to respond to all structure fires and alarms that occur in the area. However, a few years ago, the agency spoke to the fire association about the benefit of having rescue techs train to operate fire pumps at the scene so firefighters could concentrate on battling the blaze. At that time, it trained all rescue techs in pump operations and offered an annual refresher course to keep them up to speed on the process. That program worked out well, and it wasn’t long before Limestone Fire approached Wheeley about having his EMS personnel responding in their engine since they were going to the fire anyway. “We felt if we added some medical equipment to the engine so that we could still perform our primary role as EMS, then it made sense for us to respond in the fire engine,” Wheeley said. “Many times, the volunteers were driving past the fire to go to the station to get to the engine (so) if they knew the engine was in route; they could respond directly to the scene, thereby reducing response times.” Trusting the techs Limestone Volunteer Fire Department Chief Tim Jaynes said the partnership was a natural solution to what had become a difficult problem. In recent years, Limestone has evolved from a small, one street town area full of family farms to more of a bedroom community. As businesses began to spread out and subdivisions started to claim the farmland, it became a concern. The volunteer firefighters were farther away, which increased response times and response availability. “We approached EMS about the possibility of having the rescue techs, who were already housed in our station on a rescue truck, respond in an engine to the fire incident,” Jaynes said. “Many of the techs were already fire trained and associated with a fire department so we trusted their abilities to operate the engine on scene.”
42 THE MUNICIPAL | OCTOBER 2021
