Madison County launches service to assist with 911 emergencies

WAMPSVILLE, N.Y. — The Madison County Office of Emergency Management has introduced its Faster Advanced Life Support (ALS) Fly Car as a means to provide mobile, non-transporting services to people who call 911 and alleviate the burden on local emergency departments.

“Emergency Management protects the whole community by coordinating and integrating all activities necessary to build, sustain, and improve the capability to mitigate against, prepare for, respond to, and recover from threatened or actual hazards and disasters,” Dan Degar, director of Madison County Office of Emergency Management, said in a news release. “Our ALS Fly Cars do just that. They help answer a need that has been in our community for a while. Our goal is to provide not only emergency services, but [also preventive] health services, assistance with vaccinations, and assistance with mental health.”

The combination of staffing shortages, COVID-19 cases, and an increase in emergency calls have left ambulance services and hospitals with a heavy burden, emergency management officials said. The two hospitals in Madison County have had to place their emergency rooms on diversion, which means they can’t take on any more patients and ambulances must transport them elsewhere. This can tie up ambulances for hours as they transfer seriously ill patients to hospitals that can accept them, putting the community in danger of not having anyone to respond to an emergency call.

This is where the Fly Cars come into play. Madison County Fly Cars are equipped with top-of-the-line equipment and experienced paramedics. Initially, the ALS Fly Car will be staffed between 40 and 50 hours a week to handle low-acuity 911 calls to free up ambulances and other paramedics to handle larger emergencies or ones that require transport. Emergency management officials hope to expand to 80 to 90 hours of coverage a week by the spring. Hours of operation will depend on staff availability and times of typical high-call volumes.

“I’m very excited to be able to bring more emergency medical services to Madison County and to be able to provide our community with faster advanced life-support services,” Madison County EMS Coordinator Jenna Rosky said. “The emergency management team and the county’s administration has worked very hard to provide these resources for our community and our local ambulance agencies. We are looking forward to seeing these resources be utilized by providing help to our community.”

Madison County Board Chairman John M. Becker, who noted that the topic was on the radar prior to COVID, said the ALS Fly Car is a way to provide more resources to residents of the rural community with limited resources.

Funding for the pilot program comes from ARPA funds the county received. One vehicle and team will be stationed at the Madison County Highway Facility in Eaton and another will be at the county offices in Wampsville.