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Policy lets Beach firefighters treat victims on site By TIM MCGLONE
VIRGINIA BEACH - When a boy was found not breathing and without a heartbeat in a fire last week, a city firefighter-paramedic, also a member of a Beach rescue squad, treated the boy at the scene, carried him into an ambulance and rode with him to the hospital. Thanks to a recent city rule change announced Tuesday, it's now easier for firefighters trained as paramedics to provide advanced life support. In the past, firefighters had to be city rescue squad volunteers in order to do so. If they weren't squad members, they had to wait at an emergency until a paramedic with the Department of Emergency Medical Services arrived. At the urging of the city firefighters union and some of the city's volunteer rescue squads, EMS dropped the affiliation requirement. At last Monday's fire on Wolfsnare Road, Capt. Hedley Austin, one of about 20 affiliated firefighters, provided advanced life support for a 3-year-old boy trapped in the house fire. The boy later died, but officials credited Austin's help with reviving the boy's heart and breathing. Because of the rule change, 30 more firefighters have the opportunity to practice advanced life support skills, officials estimate. Officials don't know how many of the 30 will accept the city's offer. But members of the Virginia Beach Professional Firefighters union say some won't use their advanced life support skills on the job because of other city policies. For example, in order for a firefighter to be able to perform advanced life support, he or she must work two paid, 12-hour shifts a month for EMS. That sometimes leaves fire engines short-staffed, said union officials. Also, some city firefighters hold second jobs with paramedic services in other cities and see the requirement as duplicative. But city officials maintain the requirement is necessary for anyone to practice ALS under the city's medical license. All 363 city firefighters are trained in basic life support and can provide care such as cardio-pulmonary resuscitation and bandaging wounds. ALS providers have more hours of specialized training. With the change, announced at Tuesday's City Council meeting, the chiefs of the Fire Department and EMS updated the council on a wide-ranging study of emergency medical care. The chiefs said they learned that there were more issues than originally expected. ``Every time we turned around someone was screaming about an issue,'' said Ed Brazle, a spokesman for EMS. ``We took a step back and decided to look at it as an entire issue. It's not just the firefighters. It's not just the rescue squad. There were complaints all over,'' he said. From the study, officials learned that residents are concerned that ambulances are slow to respond. Officials said the city needs to assure residents that if a firefighter-paramedic riding a fire truck is the first to arrive at a medical emergency, the patient will receive the same level of care as a paramedic who pulls up in an ambulance. There is a plan to label certain fire engines as paramedic providers, officials said. Overall, union officials said they are pleased with the changes, but more needs to be done. In other developments:
``Finally some end results are coming through,'' union President Dean DaSilva said. ``This process is going to expand. That's good. It's going to encompass a lot more people.'' City officials said they know there are still critics of the system. ``I call upon the critics to help us find good solutions to enhancing our systems rather than providing destructive criticism,'' said Oral Lambert, the city's chief operating officer.
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