- Home
- Your Government
- Departments
- Fire Department
- Department Services
- Emergency Medical Services (EMS)
Emergency Medical Services (EMS)
Pre-Hospital Emergency Medical Services (EMS)
For more than 25 years the Fire Department has been providing Emergency Medical Services. This involvement includes all facets of primary care delivery, including direct assistance in effecting transport. The Lebanon Fire Department, starting on December 31, 1999, provides transporting ambulance services to the citizens of Lebanon.
Notification
Notification can occur in every form by dialing 911, which is answered by professionals at the Dispatch Center who are able to give life-saving information over the phone while the ambulance is responding to the emergency. Citizens have walked or driven to the stations either reporting or obtaining assistance themselves. Time is as critical in EMS as it is in the other types of emergencies. A person without a heartbeat for more than 6 minutes can experience irreversible brain damage.
Response
The Fire Department responds to all EMS calls throughout the City with experienced, professional personnel who can handle medical emergencies in the most proficient manner. From a one car motor vehicle crash, to mass casualty, to hazardous materials incidents, the fire department is there. An engine in many cases will respond to assist the ambulance on calls that are critical to life or limb such as heart attacks, strokes, and trauma. This team provides advanced life support skills to the patient. EMS scenes can become highly labor intensive when advanced life support skills are administered in remote locations or up several flights of stairs. As an example, if a patient is in cardiac arrest, one Firefighter EMT is assigned to the airway, another to do compressions, while the Paramedic is putting in IVs and providing life-saving drugs to the patient. Another two emergency personnel are needed to place the patient on a backboard and help carry the patient to the ambulance while CPR is in progress.
Resources
Two ambulances are equipped to provide advanced life support to the citizens of Lebanon and visitors. These ambulances and your engines are manned by experienced personnel. Seventeen Emergency Medical Technicians, 9 of whom are advanced life support qualified to provide care in a timely fashion whether aboard the ambulance or first on scene aboard an engine.
Other EMS Services
The Fire Department is sponsoring, with support from the community, the File of Life Program. This is a program where people can place a document containing their medical history and medications in a small plastic folder that magnetically attaches to the front of the refrigerator. This speeds up the gathering of vital patient information by the emergency response personnel to give to the receiving hospital.
Blood Pressure Checks
Citizens are also welcome to get their blood pressure checked by stopping by the Lebanon Fire Station on:12 S Park Street
Lebanon, NH 03766