I agree we need volunteer Fire/Medic services. In the last few years though I have
seen an increase in what would seem to be wasteful use of those resources.

The other evening I heard a dispatch to a location about 1/2 mile from my home. Report of chest pains in a male resident at that location. As I sat here looking out the window facing the highway an Ambulance that now provides service to our area and located about 4 miles from us (we are 8 miles out of the city) roared past en route to the call. About 2 minutes later a volunteer unit went screaming by (after the original Ambulance service had been on scene for about 3 minutes). Then in about 3 more minutes another rescue unit screamed by. How many ambulance/medic units to you need on a call of chest pains.

I had asked this question a couple three years ago to one of the volunteer “Chiefs”. He said that they roll out whenever they can so they can claim “response” to a call. Sometimes whether it was in their jurisdiction or not (if it was in a reasonable response range). He said they receive federal grant money based on the number of calls they respond to. Now I hope I’m not speaking out of turn, and not trying to be overly critical, but when volunteer outfits start trying to figure a way to “scam” the system by responding when they are not really needed to get extra federal money, then maybe it is time to re-visit how calls are counted as “responded to”.

Maybe the first responding unit, or the one actually assigned to the call should get the credit instead of just showing up to be counted whether you do anything or not. Suppose an accident happens miles from where you are rushing to and you are needed at another scene more than just standing around being counted as a responding unit.

If anyone has the rationale for this please chime in, I’d like to learn.

Comments Welcome.