Monday marks the first day of a new chapter at the Lodi Fire Department.
One of the newest pieces of equipment at the department is a high-tech EKG. On top of measuring and recording electrical signals from the heart, it provides all this care outside of the emergency room.
“It’s like as if we brought the emergency room to your living room,” Chief Ken Johnson said.
It’s just one of the newest safety measures officially added at the Lodi Fire Department, and it’s all part of their new program called Advanced Life Support Services.
“The cardiac medications, the defibrillator that can actually defibrillate somebody in a cardiac event, airway management with advanced airways, like an endotracheal tube for those burn patients or for patients who can’t control their airway,” Chief Johnson explained. “We’re able to really provide some of the very, very similar services you would get at the emergency room right there with our paramedics.”
But that’s not all that’s new with the department.
“We’re at a place where we have our policies, we have our equipment, we have our trained personnel who are accredited in the county, and today is our first day where we’re providing Paramedic Services for the city of Lodi,” Chief Johnson shared.
After four years of work, grants, purchasing equipment and schooling, ten paramedics have officially been introduced to the city of Lodi.
“Since the 1970s, the Lodi Fire Department has provided basic life support, which is, it’s is what it says. It’s the basics of EMS, bleeding control, CPR, spinal immobilization,” Chief Johnson continued. “But it doesn’t meet some of the expectations, I believe, our community wants us to be.”
Lodi Fire runs just shy of 8,000 calls per year. More than 70% of those calls are for different types of medical assistance.
Adding these services means more boots on the ground and more lives being saved.
“Having trained paramedics who can actually engage immediately makes the workplace itself even safer,” Chief Johnson explained. “So the balance between higher level of service for our community at the thing we do the most of and also providing a safer working environment for my people makes it all around a no-brainer.”
The department is still in the process of expanding its 24/7 paramedic services to all four fire stations within the city with the hopes of that being accomplished by the end of next year.