UTFFEMT
11-01-2005, 01:56 PM
Tooele County outgrows its EMTs
By Leigh Dethman
Deseret Morning News
It seems Tooele County is getting too big for its small-town britches.
An all-volunteer ambulance force was overloaded Monday morning after a flurry of accidents left some of the injured waiting up to 30 minutes for emergency assistance.
"You have a heart attack, you're dead in a half an hour," County Commissioner Matt Lawrence said. "Nobody waits a half an hour in this day and age."
Tooele County is one of the fastest growing counties in the nation with a population that jumped nearly 53 percent from 1990 to 2000. That kind of growth comes with a few bumps and bruises along the way.
Roy Boland, director of emergency and critical care services for the hospital, said he knows he doesn't have enough EMTs to serve the county's growing population. Boland said he can only rely on 35 of the hospital's volunteer EMT force. About 75 volunteers are paid per call, he said.
"We've been experiencing some growing pains," Boland said. "We just don't have enough volunteers."
Mountain West Regional Medical Center's paid volunteer EMTs respond to calls throughout the county, Lawrence said. The hospital keeps three ambulances in Tooele, two in Grantsville, one in Rush Valley, one at the North Tooele County Fire Department in Stansbury Park and one in Vernon, Boland said.
That kind of widespread coverage can pose problems for the volunteer force.
Monday, all those problems came to light after five car accidents happened along U-36 in a span of three hours during the morning commute. At one point, three accidents and two medical emergency calls came in within 20 minutes of each other.
At approximately 6:02 a.m., a car rear-ended another vehicle near the intersection of U-36 and U-138 near Stansbury Park, UHP spokesman Jeff Nigbur said. Troopers immediately arrived at the scene, but it took an ambulance 30 minutes to arrive.
Each crash occurred for a variety of reasons, from aggressive driving to weather, Nigbur said. UDOT recently completed an extensive widening project along U-36.
"On a normal day we have enough coverage, but if there were five wrecks, I could see they would be overwhelmed," Lawrence said.
The Grantsville Fire Department is considering hiring a private ambulance service instead of relying on Mountain West Regional Medical Center's volunteer force. The small Tooele County city has only 15 trained EMTs on-call with two ambulances.
Boland submitted a proposal last week to his superiors at Mountain West Regional Medical Center that would station two full-time ambulance crews in Tooele, yet maintain the paid volunteer staff to man the rest of the county.
Lawrence said the issue is complicated, and finding a solution to the county's ambulance service woes cannot be solved with one simple solution.
"I would like to be able to put my finger on one place and say, 'There's a problem, now let's go forward and fix it,' " Lawrence said. "I wish I knew clearly, but I don't. But I am troubled that in year 2005 we don't have adequate ambulance service."
By Leigh Dethman
Deseret Morning News
It seems Tooele County is getting too big for its small-town britches.
An all-volunteer ambulance force was overloaded Monday morning after a flurry of accidents left some of the injured waiting up to 30 minutes for emergency assistance.
"You have a heart attack, you're dead in a half an hour," County Commissioner Matt Lawrence said. "Nobody waits a half an hour in this day and age."
Tooele County is one of the fastest growing counties in the nation with a population that jumped nearly 53 percent from 1990 to 2000. That kind of growth comes with a few bumps and bruises along the way.
Roy Boland, director of emergency and critical care services for the hospital, said he knows he doesn't have enough EMTs to serve the county's growing population. Boland said he can only rely on 35 of the hospital's volunteer EMT force. About 75 volunteers are paid per call, he said.
"We've been experiencing some growing pains," Boland said. "We just don't have enough volunteers."
Mountain West Regional Medical Center's paid volunteer EMTs respond to calls throughout the county, Lawrence said. The hospital keeps three ambulances in Tooele, two in Grantsville, one in Rush Valley, one at the North Tooele County Fire Department in Stansbury Park and one in Vernon, Boland said.
That kind of widespread coverage can pose problems for the volunteer force.
Monday, all those problems came to light after five car accidents happened along U-36 in a span of three hours during the morning commute. At one point, three accidents and two medical emergency calls came in within 20 minutes of each other.
At approximately 6:02 a.m., a car rear-ended another vehicle near the intersection of U-36 and U-138 near Stansbury Park, UHP spokesman Jeff Nigbur said. Troopers immediately arrived at the scene, but it took an ambulance 30 minutes to arrive.
Each crash occurred for a variety of reasons, from aggressive driving to weather, Nigbur said. UDOT recently completed an extensive widening project along U-36.
"On a normal day we have enough coverage, but if there were five wrecks, I could see they would be overwhelmed," Lawrence said.
The Grantsville Fire Department is considering hiring a private ambulance service instead of relying on Mountain West Regional Medical Center's volunteer force. The small Tooele County city has only 15 trained EMTs on-call with two ambulances.
Boland submitted a proposal last week to his superiors at Mountain West Regional Medical Center that would station two full-time ambulance crews in Tooele, yet maintain the paid volunteer staff to man the rest of the county.
Lawrence said the issue is complicated, and finding a solution to the county's ambulance service woes cannot be solved with one simple solution.
"I would like to be able to put my finger on one place and say, 'There's a problem, now let's go forward and fix it,' " Lawrence said. "I wish I knew clearly, but I don't. But I am troubled that in year 2005 we don't have adequate ambulance service."