# What do you do when you can't find it?



## MMiz (Jul 6, 2004)

We're dispatched Priority 1, RLS to two major cross roads in our city.  Its for an apartment complex, and we're given the address.  Unfortunately there is literally 10 or so complexes all together, and they take up block after block.  We're looking, looking, looking.  We hear the ALS unit call on scene within 4 minutes, and radio for more info, but they're working the call and don't hear us.  We ask dispatch for more info but get none.  We go up and down streets, in and out of little areas, even ask a lady walking her dog if she knows where it is, but nothing.  This is all with the lights and sirens on.

We see a cop going to the scene, but my partner (the one I had problems with described in the other thread), totally loses him and doesn't see him go by.  Finally we see the top of the ALS unit over a tall brick wall, and get on scene.

I'm frustrated, he's frustrated, and I don't know what would have happened if we were the only unit available.  In reality we're only a backup unit, with the purpose of initiating treatment, or assisting ALS.  We're only dispatched with a ALS or Paramedic unit, but still it's frustrating not being able to find the place.

Any suggestions you old pros have?  

(BTW:  The call turned out to be non-emergent, and again, ALS was there within 4 minutes).


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## ffemt8978 (Jul 6, 2004)

We have map books in all of our rigs, with each individual address shown.

Also, we can call our dispatch center and they'll give us directions from the nearest major street.

Now this is all well and good if we're responding to an address.  As I've mentioned in previous threads, we have a lot of rural area also, including wilderness.  We tend to get a lot of obscure trail names and location references, and have to hope our driver knows where that is.  I've been on a couple of calls where we've called for a helicopter to help us find the scene, and a couple of more where the calling party was able to give us a GPS coordinate.


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## SafetyPro2 (Jul 6, 2004)

We got toned out a few months back for a "person not breathing", and the address given was literally a block away from my house on a short cul-de-sac. I was on-scene before the ambulance even called in as responding.

I'm looking at house numbers as I drive up and get to the end, and realize there's no house with that number. The two houses at the end were both lower than our call house (the house numbers get bigger as you go up the street there).

I'm out running around with a flashlight looking for this address, starting to get really worried, when the next guy shows up on-scene. He decides to check the cross-street in case dispatch made a mistake. There is a house with the dispatched number about half a block up, so we're just starting up the walk when the ambulance gets on-scene. We grab our gear and go to the door, and have two totally bewildered occupants who say "No, nothing's going on here."

The Captain tells them the address we got dispatched to, and one of them says "Oh, that could be the ??? residence."

I think a collective "Oh @$#$^" went out from everyone there. We know that name. Probably the richest family in town...they own 125 acres of the hillside above where we're standing. They literally bought our ambulance for us when we couldn't get the city to pay for it. And their property goes down to the end of the cul-de-sac, and that's technically their address. Unfortunately, the house is entered off another street further up the hill on the other side of the neighborhood. Dispatch has a note in their system to dispatch us to the house entrance rather than the actual address, but somehow missed giving us that info.

Anyway, we immediately threw the gear back on the ambulance and hauled butt up the hill. Got on-scene to find PD already there (they knew the right entry point)and a couple of FFs who knew the family personally. CPR was already in progress, but unfortunately, the wife didn't make it. We're pretty sure that the delay in getting the ambulance on-scene wouldn't have made a difference anyway, but it still left us feeling pretty low after the transport was over.

Those big apartment/condo complexes are a pain regardless of how good your dispatch info is. We don't have any in our town, so I don't have any experience with responding to one, but I did ride around one last fall in an airport shuttle for about 15 minutes. It was so bad that I was helping the driver look for the address. He finally had to call his dispatcher who got the pick-up on her cell phone and found out she was at the office. We then spent another 5 minutes trying to find that before we finally did.


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