Two numbers stand out in the Mount Airy Fire Department's annual report for 2011 -- 1,084 and seven -- but it's the smallest one that's most impressive.
Seven is the number of saved lives credited to department members since they launched an expanded medical-response program in December 2010.
As of Dec. 31, the program completed its first full year of supplementing services offered by the Surry County Emergency Medical Service and Mount Airy Rescue Squad. Its purpose is ensuring a swift response to emergencies and possibly stabilizing victims until advanced life support arrives.
Fire Chief Zane Poindexter said the new program went beyond the first-responder services that the department began in 1997 to cover a wide range of calls in addition to cardiac-related emergencies handled in the past. Now included are strokes, diabetes-related issues, lightning strikes involving injury, cuttings/stabbings, overdoses, shootings, drowning/diving accidents, unresponsive persons, abdominal pain and others.
The new effort has paid off with city firefighters being credited with saving the seven lives, and another is pending. Each time an emergency provider's services are believed to have kept someone from dying, the case is evaluated by a special committee to certify this. The committee, which includes members of the local medical community, evaluates the care rendered to determine if it constitutes an official "save."
Since the first-responder service began in the late 1990s, city fire personnel are credited with 37 lives saved.
"It's been very successful," Poindexter said Monday of the expanded effort, pointing out that this is supported by the numbers.
"We averaged about two lives saved per year for those 12 or so odd years since 1997," he said, "and we went to seven in one year. Of course, that may not happen every year."
The emergencies responded to included 24 victims who were in full cardiac arrest and five others in respiratory arrest.
"The majority of our employees are medically certified to provide basic medical care, which includes cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and cardiac defibrillation with the use of an automated external defibrillator (AED)," Poindexter explained.
Departmental vehicles also are equipped with such items as oxygen-delivery services and airway-stabilization devices.
Medical-related responses constituted the largest category of the total calls answered by the Mount Airy Fire Department last year. The 1,084 medical-related incidents represented a 75 percent to 25 percent ratio compared to traditional fire calls. Those did not include responses to motor vehicle accidents with injury, which represented 103 victims, according to the annual report.
In all, the department handled 1,698 incident calls. Seven were structure fires, with a number of other blazes responded to involving vehicles along with woods, grass and other types.
Members of the Mount Airy Board of Commissioners, which received the annual report Thursday night, were highly complimentary of the services it reflected, especially the lives saved.
Copyright 2012 - The Mount Airy News, N.C.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
