Most firefighter calls are for medical emergencies

Most associate firefighters with the men who run toward burning buildings with hoses and working to put those blazes out. But there's more to their job than just battling fires.

In Highlands County, in fact, there's much more.

"Emergency medical calls definitely are a majority of our call volume," said Sebring Fire Chief Brad Batz.

One only needs to listen to a scanner for a few hours and they'll notice that most dispatches are for things like diabetic emergencies, unresponsive patients, cardiac, stroke, difficulty breathing and injuries from a fall.

A rough study the department conducted about two years ago found that between 70 and 75 percent of their calls are emergency first response medical calls, Batz said.

"All of our personnel are firefighter, EMT (emergency medical technician) and paramedic certified," he said. "We respond to any 911 call in the city limits of Sebring."

That percentage seems to ring true for the volunteer departments, as well. Chief Scott Mann, with the West Sebring Volunteer Fire Department, said three-fourths of their call volume is medical and the rest is fire-related, such as alarms and actual blazes.

"We do have an MOU (memorandum of understanding) through the county and EMS for the running of medical calls," Mann said.

While the city handles all medical calls that come in, according to Mann, his staff only runs out on calls for cardiac or stroke and serves as first responders.

"If it's an active stroke, EMS would request a helicopter to fly them out," Mann said, while adding that local facilities don't have the resources to handle that.

As first responders, firefighters will assess the ABC - airway, breathing and circulation - and treat just what they see, according to Batz.

"We make sure that the patient has an airway, we control any bleeding and treat for shock," he said.

The first responders also try to get as much of a patient's history as they can before EMS arrives.

"What we respond to on cardiac-related calls ... we would be there obviously to assist EMS and we have the required medical supplies, as well as an AED (automated external defibrillator)," Mann said.

The firefighters at West Sebring, since they're all volunteers, are required to have first responder training, which is obtained through the fire school, according to Mann.

Still, the department does have eight EMTs.

Like Sebring Fire, all firefighters at the Avon Park Fire Department are also EMT certified, according to Chief David Cloud.

Costs associated

When it comes to costs incurred from medical calls, Mann said all 10 volunteer fire departments are given money from the county to assist them.

"The county gives us $1,000 toward medical supplies," he said.

Cloud said there is no cost associated with his department serving as first responders, since they currently don't provide anything that's billable or recoverable at this point.

"Since we don't transport, we don't bill anything," he said.

Any billing would come from the EMS, according to Cloud.