Is your IFT part of the local mass casualty response plan?

Chimpie

Chimpie

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So for the past two weeks I've been practicing with the county fire and ems departments on the mass casualty drills. When the level of the event becomes a 2 or 3, the local, private ambulances services, which normally just do IFT, are put on stand by or dispatched to the scene.

My questions for you are: Do you know your local MCI plans? At what point does your IFT service get involved? Are you prepared to respond to an MCI? Have you gone through MCI training?
 
When I was at AMR in Dallas, I believe they were 911 overflow for Dallas, but never actually ran a 911 call for Dallas or did MCI drills.


My current agency does IFT and 911, but we're in an area with pretty much all volunteer FDs, so no MCI drills... we get our fair share of real MCIs as it is.
 
Chimpie said:
My questions for you are: Do you know your local MCI plans? At what point does your IFT service get involved? Are you prepared to respond to an MCI? Have you gone through MCI training?
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Yes they are.

No, I don't know at what point they respond (however one of my first company's ambulances made the paper at a Disneyland MCI).

Prepared? MCI training is a part of initial training for EMT and we do send units to the local training sessions. Additionally, all EMT level ambulances have the same minimum equipment list regardless of if they are doing 911 or doing IFT.
 
Chimpie said:
So for the past two weeks I've been practicing with the county fire and ems departments on the mass casualty drills. When the level of the event becomes a 2 or 3, the local, private ambulances services, which normally just do IFT, are put on stand by or dispatched to the scene.

My questions for you are: Do you know your local MCI plans? At what point does your IFT service get involved? Are you prepared to respond to an MCI? Have you gone through MCI training?
Click to expand...

Yes, we are.

I imagine our Medical Alert Center has a mechanism for mobilizing and coordinating the involvement of private IFT agencies since they're responsible for the management of MCIs.

With that being said, due to local politics, it is rare for IFT providers to be utilized to any meaningful degree in actual MCIs. The last one my company responded to was a train derailment - we sent multiple ambulances to that location which amounted to little more than a PR stunt. Not a single patient was transported by our service or any other private ambulance agency not already contracted with the county for 911 services to my knowledge.

Am I prepared? How prepared can one really be for such incidents? I had to take ICS classes, learn the principles of MCI/Disaster management in paramedic school and at university. Is my company prepared? Absolutely not. The idea of it horrifies me.
 
I think we are. We are always included in their mass casualty drill

Sent from LuLu using Tapatalk
 
We are. We're also BLS downgrades first call for Heartland Fire out here.
 
I actually dont think so. I have never seen the IFT companies at any MCI drill, and at our last MCI we only mobilized county 911 services. We basically stripped the county for what had the potential to be a 600+ person MCI. Thankfully we didnt need to transport all of those patients.
 
Nope! We have an alerting plan that calls in people from other counties but even with our own county we have a heck of a lot of resources as it stands (and the highest per capita paramedic rate in the country as of a few years ago if I remember correctly)
 
Yes the Patient Transfer Service is part the Ambulance MCI plan to provide vehicles and supplies.

Patient Transfer Officers do not have an authority to practice and can only provide advanced first aid.
 
I don't know when IFT ambulance services get involved with MCIs. we tell dispatch what we need and they make it happen.

My EMT-B class had MCI training and drills.

No my company does not do regular training on MCIs.

However MCIs happen around here. About a week ago we had one happen. 7 of our Medic units were sent in and 5 Medic units from another ambulance company (that we own). Along with 2 helicopters.
 
The City of Boston maintains mutual aid agreements with most, if not all, of the IFT companies operating in the city for day to day operations. If the city gets overrun, they put the call over the air and any company with available trucks can grab it. This can also be utilized for MCIs. I haven't heard of any drills going on, but it is possible that they invite the IFT companies when they do occur.

As for the suburbs, pretty much all of them are commercial services, all of whom have IFT trucks in addition to their dedicated 911 units. If the dedicated trucks get overrun, they simply send their IFT trucks to cover. Many are also part of the Urban Area Security Initiative, which allows for mutual aid between the member cities in the event of an MCI.
 
Chimpie said:
So for the past two weeks I've been practicing with the county fire and ems departments on the mass casualty drills. When the level of the event becomes a 2 or 3, the local, private ambulances services, which normally just do IFT, are put on stand by or dispatched to the scene.

My questions for you are: Do you know your local MCI plans? At what point does your IFT service get involved? Are you prepared to respond to an MCI? Have you gone through MCI training?
Click to expand...

My IFT company is on the plan and the MCI plan seems to be to run around in circles like a chicken with its head cut off. I work in the Bronx.
 
dmc2007 said:
The City of Boston maintains mutual aid agreements with most, if not all, of the IFT companies operating in the city for day to day operations. If the city gets overrun, they put the call over the air and any company with available trucks can grab it. This can also be utilized for MCIs. I haven't heard of any drills going on, but it is possible that they invite the IFT companies when they do occur.

As for the suburbs, pretty much all of them are commercial services, all of whom have IFT trucks in addition to their dedicated 911 units. If the dedicated trucks get overrun, they simply send their IFT trucks to cover. Many are also part of the Urban Area Security Initiative, which allows for mutual aid between the member cities in the event of an MCI.
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All of my company's trucks can communicate with Boston EMS via a dedicated mutual aid frequency. I am sure most other privates can as well. As far as I know, this the frequency that orders come over during an MCI, but individual units will continue to monitor their own ops frequency and await orders from the city to be relayed via our own dispatchers.

I know private companies have been a part of drills at the airport in the past, not sure what happens these days. Also, in this area a BLS ambulance is a BLS ambulance regardless of whether it is in a 911 system or IFT. About half the suburbs use fire based EMS and they will use the same mutual aid system and communications setups as the would during a greater alarm fire. Some of the larger towns also have backup contracts with privates, who are presumably covered in the MCI plans.


Sent from my out of area communications device.
 
All the ambulance services I've ever worked for have been part of the local MCI plan. Basically, the IC tells whichever agency is responsible for EMS dispatch what is needed and then things get rolling, starting with a poll of all local services as to what's available now, and in the next hour or so.

I've been out on a couple back then. Usually if BLS units were requested, they staged as a transport resource and usually just sat there for a while. One of the MCI's that I was on, we were specifically requested to do triage while all the other BLS units stayed staged. This wasn't an unusual occurrence back then. A couple years later, and the 911 contract changed a bit and BLS units went out on 911 calls far less frequently.

However, even at that point, all ambulances in the County could be brought into 911 service... It just became a more rare event that they (non-911 units) were brought in for something other than a 5150 transport.

I'm sure that's true, even today, 10 years later.
 
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