County to Expand Paramedic Program

Saying they have cut response time and are giving critical patients better care, Ventura County fire officials have announced they will expand their year-old firefighter-paramedic program.

County Fire Chief Bob Roper said he plans to add full-time firefighter-paramedics to a third station in eastern Ventura County in January and to a fourth station to be determined by June.

Officials also hope to train six more firefighters as paramedics and will consider expanding the program to the western county.

Currently, 12 firefighter-paramedics are working full time in the county. Six of them work at a Simi Valley station, and the others are assigned to a busy station in Westlake Village.

“It’s been very successful for a number of patients, particularly those in traffic crashes or people suffering from heart-related episodes,” said Sandi Wells, the Ventura County Fire Department’s information officer.

More full-time firefighter-paramedics are needed in eastern Ventura County, fire officials said.

Between March and September of this year, the Westlake Village firefighter-paramedic squad handled nearly 1,600 calls in areas assigned to three fire stations. On average, a busy fire station will respond to about 2,000 calls annually.

“We have raised the opportunity for people to survive,” Deputy Chief David A. Festerling said. “The fact is, we are getting there quicker and getting patients to medical wards faster.”

County firefighters respond to about 210 calls a day. Of those, about 80% are medical emergencies. And although all 420 county firefighters are trained to provide basic life support, mainly CPR, only firefighter-paramedics can administer drugs and insert breathing tubes.

“On average, certain patients are getting the type of service they need two minutes faster,” said Capt. Lee Heise, a supervisor at Station 31, the Westlake Village station with a firefighter-paramedic squad.

After three decades in the planning stages, the $1.4-million program was approved by county officials last December. Since then, 23 county firefighters have been certified as paramedics.

The program is part of a partnership with American Medical Response, a Thousand Oaks-based company that shares some of the program’s costs by paying the Fire Department $300,000 annually to handle its calls.