Why do we get a fire engine and an ambulance?

“What’s with the fire engine when all I needed was an ambulance?”

Time matters a great deal in the achievement of an effective outcome to an emergency medical incident. Thus, for a medical emergency the real test of performance is the time it takes to deliver trained personnel and equipment needed. North County Fire Protection District engines and ambulance are staffed with Paramedic/Firefighters.

When an individual calls 911, North County Fire is responsible to make sure that a paramedic initiates treatment as soon as possible. Our agency responds with a fire engine and ambulance to all medical incidents to ensure that the appropriate care will be delivered in a timely manner. Many times an ambulance isn’t the closest; thus the need for the paramedics and their equipment on the fire engines. This delivery system allows our organization to deliver the appropriate level of resources in the shortest time possible. With some medical calls, it can take as many as 5 or 7 people to work on one person. Many times, if you are in critical condition in an emergency room, that many people are working on you in the emergency room, no different, we just do it in the field. On most calls, there are 5 individuals on scene. To get someone packaged and delivered to the hospital, most of the time it takes that many people. There could be stairs, patient’s weight and other factors that can require all personnel. The delivery model utilized by North County Fire Protection District has become the standard for most Fire Departments in Southern California. It’s not like the old days when you just loaded someone into the back of the ambulance and went to the hospital.

We at North County Fire Protection District not only treat our patients as patients, but also as consumers. We are one of the only fire agencies in San Diego County that send out a customer survey design to allow our customers an opportunity to provide anonymous feedback regarding our performance. So when someone activates 911 in the communities of Fallbrook, Bonsall and Rainbow, a fire engine and an ambulance will be responding because no two emergencies are alike and each patient is treated with their own special needs in mind.