Hartford, CT begins EMS (link)

[Dalmatian90]

The department's on its way to a day that ends with 113 calls across the city. Last May, the department responded to 146 calls in the whole month.

Hartford runs 11 Engines, 5 Ladders, 1 Tac (Rescue), and 2 Chiefs per shift. I believe they're on 10 hour days/ 14 hour nights right now.

Good, well rounded article at:
http://www.ctnow.com/scripts/editori...=y&ck=&ver=2.8

Hartford FD website: http://www.ci.hartford.ct.us/fire/root/

[Adze]

If you ever listen to the scanner in the Hartford area, East and West Hartford are constantly doing calls in Hartford. Generally, East and West Hartford are 2nd alarm companies for Hartford. Blue Hills (which I run with during the day) runs 3rd alarms for the city...So, I'm waiting to get called into Hartford for a worker.

[AntiG]

I monitor Hartford fire and can't believe the number of medical calls they have to run on. From the communications I hear it sounds like they are doing a great job covering the calls in a timely manor. I feel the city needs to review the types of calls they are sending the FD to. It was mentioned in the paper they got sent to someone scratched by a cat. With time I'm sure they will iron out the bugs.
I work for an insurance company in Hartford during the day and it's nice to know if I have a problem that the FD will respond.

[Adze]

AntiG: Which FD in Farmington are you in?

[AntiG]

Farmington Center, Main Street Station

[ntvilleff]

AntiG -

We run first responder in four of our districts. You mentioned about Hartfords response to a cat scratch. One of our dept's got an ems call for "..a tick on their daughters head.....not sure how to get it out." Talk about a waste of taxpayers money. But our town is very service oriented. So......

[AntiG]

We provide medical first responder service as well and we've been sent to similar calls where an ambulance only would have been sufficient. The public needs to be educated when and when not to call 911. But we don't want to give the public the wrong message and have them hesitate to call 911 either. It's a catch 22 I guess. The non-life threatening calls could be triaged by the dispatchers and guidelines should be set up to relieve the FD from running on cat scratches and such calls.

[Dalmatian90]

LOL @ Ticks...

Back in '88 when I was doing my ER Time as part of my EMT Class, one of the local Fire Chiefs drove his son to the ER.

Chief Complaint: The boy had a tick on his head! Apparantly Mom was quite upset about it, and for some reason Chief decided the ER Bill was worth keeping Mom quiet.

[Adze]

> was worth keeping Mom quiet.

LOL...Gee, don't I know THAT feeling!!!

[NozzleHog]

Adze:
Stay tuned to that radio. From the sound of it, yours and the other suburban dept's might soon be first due in center city Hartford. All the city companies will be busy putting bandaids on boo-boo's, nursing drunks with hangovers and generally providing quality EMS "customer service."