River medics provide high level care, free coozies on the Illinois River

By Laura Nightengale
Journal Star

PEORIA, Ill. — One Advanced Medical Transport crew takes a break from the truck each weekend to staff RiverMedic1, the state's first, and perhaps only, Advanced Life Support transport watercraft.

In short, it's a waterborne ambulance that serves a dual purpose as an emergency responder and ambassador of safety on the Illinois River.

"It allows them to engage with the public in a different way, because a lot of what we're doing is promoting public safety," said Josh Bradshaw, an EMT and community resource manager for AMT.

Their primary mission is, of course, providing medical care. They respond to medical calls on the river and shoreline where sometimes they're on the scene the quickest, occasional boating or skiing accidents, and provide mutual aid to other agencies or stand by during events like the Peoria Triathlon or when someone threatens to jump off a bridge. More often than not, those events don't result in serious injury.

The three-person crew of one paramedic, one EMT and a boat operator is actually much more likely to be found aboard the re-purposed fishing boat passing out life jackets to kids, towing stranded boats or throwing coozies and flying discs to boaters with their phone number. In all they've been out on 16 calls for service this year and provided aid to three disabled vehicles and handed out close to 70 free life jackets to kids.

Boaters are a typically a highly social and often tight-knit group. RiverMedic1's patrols usually include making stops at the "hot spots" such as Paradise Beach and Upper Peoria Lake, the favored spot for skiers, so that when boaters do call during an emergency, crews will arrive and often know who to look for.

"When you're out here all the time, you can really make a meaningful connection with the boating community," Bradshaw said.

It's not unusual for the crew to make it through their five-hour shift without a call, but to have a prepared ambulance crew in place for those times that they are needed is invaluable. RiverMedic1 has responded to calls for a man in respiratory distress on shore when they were the closest crew to his location, a woman with a dislocated kneecap that received an IV with pain medicine and a lift to an awaiting ambulance, and helped locate a disoriented, 71-year-old man who called 911 when he couldn't find his way home.

Another important perk, as paramedic Ian Allen pointed out during his shift Sunday afternoon, is the effect such a change of scenery can have on crews that spend much of their high-stress shifts in a vehicle and have particularly high burnout rates.

"It's a fun detail to work, and it benefits the community," he said, "because we're the only medical service boat out there."

But it's not all fun and games. RiverMedic1 is loaded with all of the same medical equipment as a Advanced Life Support ambulance, including IV medications, intubation tubes and fast patches for mobile defibrillation. Aaron Biresaw, a paramedic, quickly demonstrated how their mobile monitor works with clip, a cuff and a few patches to track heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen levels.

"This is hospital level data," Biresaw said.

Mostly the work is identical to what the crews would be doing in their regular shifts on land, but with the added challenges of locating patients without specific addresses and accessing potentially difficult to reach spaces by boat.

"We want to get the patient into our environment as quickly as possible and give them care," Biresaw said.

RiverMedic1 runs from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sundays from Memorial Day to Labor Day, as well as on holidays and during special events.

Copyright 2016 the Journal Star

from EMS via xlomafota13 on Inoreader http://ift.tt/2aPJjTW