Given that responding to medical emergencies has become a key function of the Mount Airy Fire Department along with its foremost mission of battling blazes, 2020 will go down as a strange year.
And the reason for this is the same one that caused many more anomalies in 2020: the coronavirus.
After an all-time record call total for the department of 1,957 registered during 2019, overall incident responses dipped to 1,113 last year, Fire Chief Zane Poindexter said in conjunction with a just-released annual report of its activities in 2020.
Although the number of structure fires city firefighters responded to grew from 2019 to 2020 — nine to 12 — there was a huge decline in the medical call volume. The Mount Airy Fire Department has been dispatched to all medical emergencies in the city limits, except for those at staffed facilities, since December 2010.
Fire personnel logged only 630 of those calls in 2020, down sharply from 1,310 the previous year.
This doesn’t mean there were fewer medical emergencies during 2020. The decrease in responses by city firefighters was due to protocol changes triggered by COVID-19, Poindexter said.
Based on a request from the N.C. Office of Emergency Medical Services aimed at reducing the number of responders coming into contact with COVID-19 patients, Mount Airy firefighters were not dispatched to any call in which that was a possibility.
The city fire chief added that only the primary responder, the Surry County Emergency Medical Service, was summoned in such cases rather than the Mount Airy Fire Department in its first-responder role.
It was not readily known if this caused any issues, based on an average response time last year to all incidents by the department of only two minutes and 46 seconds.
Sometimes those seeking help have heard the sirens of approaching fire trucks while still on the line with the county 911 communications center, Poindexter related.
“And that’s comforting to know,” he said of the rapid response time.
Safety activities impacted
The coronavirus also prompted the postponement of various public education activities, such as fire station tours and safety classes.
“That has left us with a sense of uneasiness,” Poindexter disclosed regarding possible ramifications from being unable to conduct events that are part of his department’s efforts to protect the community.
He said this did serve to allow more training opportunities, calling that a bright spot for 2020.
On one hand, local fire personnel weren’t able to attend numerous instructional sessions of a mass nature held on a statewide scale which were cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions on gatherings.
“So we did a lot of in-house training,” Poindexter said.
In reacting to the 2020 report that was presented to the Mount Airy Board of Commissioners Thursday night, Commissioner/Mayor Pro Tem Ron Niland was pleased by the average response time of city firefighters.
Niland said he doubts any other community can lay claim to such a performance level.
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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