Fire department, medics get communications upgrade

Jen Lawson

Thursday, June 24, 2004 | 9:19 a.m.

Emergency medical personnel responding to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks didn't have the capability to communicate with other agencies, and before last week, neither did Las Vegas Fire and Rescue paramedics.

A $650,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has allowed the fire department to upgrade its radio system, enabling fire department medics to communicate with medics from Southern Nevada's two private ambulance companies, Southwest Ambulance and American Medical Response.

"It's a little tiny thing that most people in the community won't realize, but to us it's a milestone," Las Vegas Fire and Rescue spokesman Tim Szymanski said. "It will allow us to provide better service to the community."

Before this, the fire department medics and private ambulance medics responding to the same emergency sent messages to each other via two dispatchers.

For example, if a fire department medic wanted to tell a private ambulance medic to get a certain piece of equipment from a vehicle, the message would be given to a fire department dispatcher, who would pass it along to the ambulance company's dispatcher. That dispatcher would then communicate the message to the ambulance company medics.

The new system "cuts down on several middlemen and time," said Debra Dailey, paramedic supervisor with Southwest Ambulance. "We deal in seconds and minutes, and every second and minute counts with us,"

The fire department radios have been reprogrammed to make them compatible with 100 new portable radios that have been installed in AMR and Southwest ambulances.

The system is currently in a 90-day test period. It launched June 14 and also involves the Henderson Fire Department.

Fire department officials chose Henderson to be on board with the pilot program because the department is smaller than the Clark County Fire Department, and if there are any glitches in the system it will require less effort to fix them, Szymanski said.

The Clark County, North Las Vegas and Boulder City fire departments will be added to the system after the trial period, officials said.

In a second phase, which is to begin next month, new radios will be installed at each of the valley's hospitals. This will let emergency medical personnel talk directly with emergency room and trauma center personnel rather than relaying messages through two dispatchers.

At some point, Szymanski said a system will probably be created to allow fire and police departments to talk directly. Currently firefighters and police use cell phones to communicate.

Under the current system, if a paramedic is assaulted while trying to administer medical care, the medic would "have to call 911 like everyone else," Szymanski said.