By Elizabeth Meyer
The Hawk Eye
BURLINGTON, Iowa — The Burlington Fire Department can now purchase two state-of-the-art heart monitors since securing an $87,000 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
In addition to fire prevention and response, the department also employs paramedics and five ambulances responding to medical emergencies throughout Burlington, West Burlington, Middletown, Danville, six regional townships and small counties in western Illinois.
U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa, toured the fire department’s building downtown Wednesday afternoon and met with staff to discuss how they would employ the Assistance to Firefighter’s Grant earned by the Burlington unit.
The heart monitors paramedics carry in the ambulances can transmit information about the patient directly to the hospital using bandwidth from cellular towers. Even in rural areas, the paramedics said, they’ve always been able to transmit the data. They currently have two such monitors, bringing their total to four once the new monitors are purchased.
“To provide the best service, that’s what we think we should be doing,” explained deputy chief Don Ryan. “That’s why we asked for the grant money to go towards that.”
With the growing number of calls the department responds to, and its increasingly large coverage area, Ryan emphasized to Loebsack the importance of federal grants like the Assistance to Firefighter’s Grant and the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response grants that play an important role in helping them serve the community.
“We understand what goes on at the federal level. It’s some of the same issues we’re dealing with here,” said city manager Jim Ferneau, in reference to financial cut-backs at all levels of government. “We’ve had cuts in every department. This (fire) department hasn’t been excluded in that, and it causes stress and strain everywhere.”
The SAFER grant was not renewed for the Burlington Fire Department this year, hampering their ability to hire a much-needed additional firefighter.
“The main thing I can do is just keep pushing hard at the federal level for funding for these programs because there’s always an attempt to cut back on one thing or another,” Loebsack said. “But I do believe that when it comes to public safety, we ought not be cutting our budget because public safety should be No. 1.”
Earlier this month, the Burlington Fire Department was awarded the Iowa Donor Network’s LEGACI Award for Education, given to the network’s partner agencies that “go above and beyond” to work collaboratively with the agency and promote their mission to expand organ donation in the state.
“Burlington Fire received the Education Award for their commitment to educating first responders on the donation process, measurably improving skills of staff, and maintain ongoing, up-to-date education for staff,” according to a post on the Burlington Fire Department’s Facebook page.
“Our guys are very, very busy,” said fire marshall Mark Crooks. “On a daily average, we have something going out the door about 13, 14 times a day.”
Every shift employs 13 firefighters, each working 24-hour shifts.
“This money is going directly to benefit the community,” battalion chief Bruce Workman said. “We provide ambulance service, we’re the primary provider. So when you send out experienced people with new equipment, that’s what people expect, and they’re getting a good product. This is going to benefit the community.”
Despite a substantial increase in call volume, finding qualified people to hire has become difficult, Ryan said, because they expect their firefighters to be certified paramedics, too.
“When you look at the nature of our service, when 70 percent of our calls are ambulance, we need people to come in with the ability to do that,” Crooks said.
When Crooks completed the department’s entrance examination in 1988, he was joined by about 200 people. The department then hired from a list of 10 applicants.
“The last, what? Six tests that we’ve given here, we’ve been lucky to get 20 or 25,” the fire marshall said. “We’re able to fill the open slots as they come along, but we’re not getting the numbers ... this is becoming a more specialized skill.
“We’ve got a lot of people that want to be firemen, but they don’t necessarily realize that they’ve got to get their medical side of things in order before they apply.”
Copyright 2016 The Hawk Eye