All EMS On Southside and Eastside On Calls - Hundreds of Thousands People Traveling

Rickey Stokes

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Posted by: RStokes
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13347901729
Date: Jul 03 2020 11:26 AM

MADRID:   10:56 AM  Houston County Sheriff 911 dispatched Madrid Volunteer Fire and Rehobeth EMS to a motor vehicle accident with injuries on Highway 231 South and Decatur Road.

Rehobeth EMS is responding. Madrid Volunteer Fire Chief requested an additional ambulance be dispatched to the accident scene. Rehobeth Fire Chief then requested Cottonwood EMS to the accident.

Then Houston County Sheriff 911 dispatched Cottonwood EMS to a medical emergency in Madrid and cancelled Cottonwood EMS to the accident. Houston County Sheriff 911 then dispatched the second Pilcher Ambulance to the accident, for a total of three ambulances to the wreck.

Then Houston County Sheriff 911 dispatched Ashford EMS to Lizard Loop in a Columbia to a possible drowning. 

At this time all Houston County EMS on the southside and eastside of Houston County are on call. The Dothan Fire Department and Pilcher Ambulance have been slammed this morning.

This weekend is 4th of July. There will be several hundred thousand vehicles traveling through the 582 square miles of Houston County as they travel through here to go to Florida. With all of the traffic will be multiple emergency calls throughout the 582 square miles of Houston County. 

While fire is important, the Emergency Medical Services handles the transport and pre-hospital care of the sick and injured. The Dothan Fire Department responds to all 11,000 plus emergency medical calls in the city limits of Dothan. In the county, unless advanced life support is requested, the emergency medical units responding are only the ambulances.

A lot of attention during COVID-19 is fire and law enforcement. Since 1977 I only know of twice patients were not transported on ambulances by emergency units. In Dale County, then Trooper - now Colonel Charles Ward placed a Ozark Police Officer who had been shot in the front seat of his Trooper car and raced to meet the ambulance to save the officer's life. What happens all of the time no one controlled the route the ambulance was responding to the scene verses the route Ward was traveling. Ward went onto the hospital and the officer lived.

The second time was on what is now Highway 605. Dothan Fire Captain Jeff Smith and the fire company responded to a child mauled by a dog. Captain Smith checked the child, took the child in his arms and told his engine company they did not have time to wait on the ambulance. Captain Smith jumped into the fire engine and told his company members to - go go go to Flowers Hospital. This was against the policies but Captain Smith put the child's best interest over policy in order to save the child's life.

COVID-19; the patients transported from scenes to hospitals, how were they transported? It has been the EMS staff who have been inside the ambulance box with the patient providing pre-hospital care. Following the transport everything has to be completely sanitized and prepared for the 911 emergency that has not happened yet.

None of this is to say that law enforcement and fire are not important. But it is to say, EMS are front line with direct patient care. Yet leaders never mention them. And that is because EMS are step children and not thought of.

Just wanted to point this out and make you aware of what is happening right now.

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