Good evening readers. Watching the news recently has left me wondering about the amount of resources that we dedicate to emergency response. A recent clip about a vehicle that drove through a glass door at an urgent in the Los Angeles area was nothing short of amazing. When the news story started, the live feed showed several emergency vehicles surrounding the building. 13 to be exact. By the time the story was done airing, I counted 19 emergency vehicles between fire and ambulances.
Being that 6 people were transported to the hospital, I can certainly understand the additional ambulances. However, I have a hard time making sense of nearly 20 response crews. I am not an expert in fire operations by any means, but I’m confident that this incident could have been handled with less resources. The image displayed on TV’s nation-wide showed some crews treating the victims, and at least 12 people standing around outside the building.
A good comparison to this incident would be the Mojave Air and Spaceport explosion in 2007. 4 critical patients who suffered from blast injuries were transported via air ambulance to a trauma center. 2 patients died at the scene. The total response included 3 fire engines, 3 air ambulances and 2 ground ambulances. The ground ambulances were canceled once the airships arrived on scene.
Obviously Mojave, CA does not have anywhere near the resources that Los Angeles does. However, the incident was run with an adequate number of personnel to ensure scene safety, proper patient care, and expedient transport.
In times of financial hardship, businesses and goverment agencies around the nation are doing what they can to cut costs. In the response to the current budget crisis, Police officers, correctional officers, state employees and even some fire agenices in California are mandating 2 unpaid days off a week for all employees. Many government workers are getting their walking papers, leaving departments understaffed and over worked. Not wasting money on “over-responding” to these incidents is certainly a way that we can work to overcome these hard times.
As always, feel free to e-mail me with any questions or comments.
