All in a day’s work for M.I emergency personnel

Medflight, located at Naples Municipal Airport, covers the 2,000 square miles of Collier County, and provides mutual aid response to surrounding counties. Ninety percent of responses are on-scene calls, assisting ground units in transporting patients from rural to local and non-local hospitals. The Collier County Department of Emergency Medical Services is a consolidated agency that provides emergency medical services for the cities of Naples, Marco Island, Everglades, as well as all unincorporated areas. According to Florida Trend (Oct. 2007), Collier County EMTs achieve an  annual save rate for cardiac arrest patients of 37% compared to the national average of 6% to 10%.

As is often the case, residents are not always aware of the many times that Marco Island Fire and Police Departments respond to emergency calls. Last week, during a 48-hour period, emergency personnel handled a

variety of events. On Wednesday, July 7, police and fire responded to a two-vehicle collision at Fairlawn Court and N. Collier Blvd, and were on hand to aid a mother and her baby who were involved in the crash. The crash was classified as an injury due to complaints of those involved.

That same afternoon, the call went out for responders to aid a gentleman who had stepped out onto the roof at his hi-rise condo unit at 1001 South Collier Blvd., and had been unable to get back into his apartment.

The following day, Thursday, July 8, MIFD worked together with Collier County Emergency Medical Service to Med Flight a young patient, who had suffered a traumatic injury at his home on Marco Island, to a trauma center in St. Petersburg. Later that day, a driver crashed

their pickup truck into a tree on N. Collier Blvd near Yellowbird.

The Marco Island Fire Department is at the forefront of working closely with Collier County EMS in trauma cases. Fire Department Chief Murphy insists on having two EMS personnel as well as a driver engineer on board each time one of the MI fire tricks goes out on a call. All MI fire trucks are equipped with life support systems, so that advance life support can begin before county EMS arrive on scene.

Marco Island Fire Division Chief, Don Jones, told Coastal Breeze News that readers may be surprised at the frequency of trauma calls to our emergency services. During one week this past May, the department experienced a particularly high volume of trauma calls in one week.  He said a high percentage of the calls involve elderly drivers.