Hello all!
I read these forums nearly daily and rarely post. But I am little bit of a dilemma and was wondering if I could pick some of your brains?
The local dispatch center that dispatches the volunteer department that I am on is run by our local sheriff's department. There are the obvious problems that pop up from here to there, but for the most part they are "fairly" decent. Recently, however, we have had an increased problem throughout the county with them determining how to make our responses. For example, there are have been multiple call throughout the county for several different issues where the advises us that the caller has requested "no lights or sirens" for a medical emergency or the caller has requested "only one fire truck" for a stove fire. Our departments S.O.P.'s state that we respond code 3 (lights and sirens) to all responses that are not at "investigation" level. Any variation is determined by the apparatus officer or duty officer. We are currently going through all of our S.O.P.'s and determining what needs to be updated. My question is does your department or dispatch center have a policy in place for these kind of instances? The neighboring counties including the one my career department is in never dispatch us with this kind of response. We have a county chief's meeting next week and I would like to discuss this issue. I have a few concerns, please beat them up and let me know what you think.
1. What legal options do we have to predetermine that the fire department will not be dispatched along with EMS when the homeowner requests a non-emergency response.
2. What legal liability do we assume with our current S.O.P.'s if we continue to respond with our current response matrix policy.
3. Liability in case of major fire loss
4. Liability in case of death from delayed response during medical responses. (There was one case a few years ago at a neighboring dept. when they and the ambulance were told to make it a "no light or sirens" call by the caller for a difficulty breathing. The incident was at the far end of a very large territory. By the time the agencies arrived some 10 minutes later the pt was in cardiac arrest and did not make it)
5. I know there is always the option of shutting lights and sirens off when we get close but what if an apparatus has an accident running lights and sirens and the plaintiff's lawyer now has the audio tape of the dispatcher telling us not to run lights and sirens.
The main reason that we have determined that people request this is they don't want attention brought to them. What kind of things have your departments done to both satisfy our customers and not risk major legal liability if you have faced similar situations?
Thank you all in advance for taking time to read and respond!
I read these forums nearly daily and rarely post. But I am little bit of a dilemma and was wondering if I could pick some of your brains?
The local dispatch center that dispatches the volunteer department that I am on is run by our local sheriff's department. There are the obvious problems that pop up from here to there, but for the most part they are "fairly" decent. Recently, however, we have had an increased problem throughout the county with them determining how to make our responses. For example, there are have been multiple call throughout the county for several different issues where the advises us that the caller has requested "no lights or sirens" for a medical emergency or the caller has requested "only one fire truck" for a stove fire. Our departments S.O.P.'s state that we respond code 3 (lights and sirens) to all responses that are not at "investigation" level. Any variation is determined by the apparatus officer or duty officer. We are currently going through all of our S.O.P.'s and determining what needs to be updated. My question is does your department or dispatch center have a policy in place for these kind of instances? The neighboring counties including the one my career department is in never dispatch us with this kind of response. We have a county chief's meeting next week and I would like to discuss this issue. I have a few concerns, please beat them up and let me know what you think.
1. What legal options do we have to predetermine that the fire department will not be dispatched along with EMS when the homeowner requests a non-emergency response.
2. What legal liability do we assume with our current S.O.P.'s if we continue to respond with our current response matrix policy.
3. Liability in case of major fire loss
4. Liability in case of death from delayed response during medical responses. (There was one case a few years ago at a neighboring dept. when they and the ambulance were told to make it a "no light or sirens" call by the caller for a difficulty breathing. The incident was at the far end of a very large territory. By the time the agencies arrived some 10 minutes later the pt was in cardiac arrest and did not make it)
5. I know there is always the option of shutting lights and sirens off when we get close but what if an apparatus has an accident running lights and sirens and the plaintiff's lawyer now has the audio tape of the dispatcher telling us not to run lights and sirens.
The main reason that we have determined that people request this is they don't want attention brought to them. What kind of things have your departments done to both satisfy our customers and not risk major legal liability if you have faced similar situations?
Thank you all in advance for taking time to read and respond!
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