Sean C. Morgan
The Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District responded to 2,200 calls in 2010.
That’s up about 195 calls from 2009, said Fire Chief Mike Beaver. A couple of years earlier, the district responded to approximately 2,300 calls. Call loads decreased after that.
Among the calls in 2010, 217 were fire calls and 1,983 were medical calls, with medical calls up a little and fire calls down a little.
The department will maintain the status quo on staffing and equipment this year, Beaver said. The department has had little difficulty having ambulance crews available even at the busiest times last year.
The department frequently had two ambulances on calls simultaneously throughout 2010, but even when more ambulances were dispatched, it was able to easily put crews on them.
“We’ve been getting really good results, people coming back in,” Beaver said. He said SHFAD hardly needed to have Lebanon Fire District on standby at all, something the district has had to do when three or four ambulances were on calls at once in past years. Sweet Home also provides standby service to Lebanon when necessary.
Beaver said there were two reasons why more staffing problems haven’t arisen.
“Current paid staff recognizes the need,” he said. “And right now, we just happen to have three trained paramedics who are intern medics here.”
It’s rare to have three certified paramedics as interns, Beaver said, but with current economic conditions, there are few permanent jobs in Oregon.
“They’re all good employees, good medics,” he said.
The district has one major purchase on the horizon, Beaver said. Its newest ambulance is three years old and has 90,000 miles on it, so the district will look for a new ambulance this year.
The district had been on a two-year cycle for replacing ambulances, Beaver said. It had a number of older vehicles it needed to get out of the system.
The district is putting on even more mileage in the past couple of years than it had been.
Sweet Home ambulances now take many obvious heart attack patients straight to the cardiac lab at Samaritan Regional Medical Center in Corvallis, Beaver said. The ambulances are now equipped to begin treatment, and heading straight to Corvallis improves patient outcomes.
“There’s always needs,” Beaver said. “There’s always wants. We’re going to be focused more on the needs.”