Ambulances Standby at Football Games for Trial Period

Judy and Jim Hess watched as their son, Zachary, lay on the football field with a neck injury during a Reservoir High School football game last year.

"Time stood still," recalled Judy.

Within minutes, Howard County emergency personnel began treating Zachary, but their first step was getting to the patient. In the crucial moments after Zachary went down, EMTs returning to the Long Reach Fire Department picked up the call and rerouted to the football stadium.

"They wouldn’t let us on the field while they worked on him," Judy said. "Thankfully his injuries were minor and he returned to the game the following week."

A year later, Howard County rescue personnel have completed a pilot initiative to eliminate that trip to the stadium, by having ambulances present at all varsity and junior varsity football games.

According to the fire department, all 12 of its ambulances were driven to football games within their immediate response areas to assess traffic flow, access to the fields and other ways to reduce the time it takes to begin treating an injured athlete. This was all done while also responding to any calls within the immediate area, officials said.

"Football can be a very physical game and in just a matter of seconds, emergencies can and do happen on the football field," said Councilman Greg Fox, Dist. 5, in a press release.

Resident Ed Schinner contacted Fox and asked whether having ambulances for the games was even feasible, and Fox brought the idea to the fire chief.

Schinner has two sons who play football for Reservoir High School and two younger sons who could play in the future. He said he didn't know if it was possible to have ambulances nearby, but as a concerned parent, he could take the time to find out.

"I just knew a saying my father taught me a long time ago, 'If you never ask, the answer is always no,'" Schinner told Patch.

"We are always happy to take our constituents’ suggestions into account because some of the best ideas come from just listening to others," Fox said.

The pilot program comes within days of the announcement that in county police vehicles, and within a month of county athletic director Mike Williams saying that having AEDs at all school athletic events is "not practical."

"You know, it’d be ideal to have a designated AED at every game, but you could have a game in the stadium, a game in the gym, in the field hockey field,"

But fire department spokesperson Jackie Cutler says the pilot coincidentally started after Williams' comments, and that it was Schinner's suggestion that really prompted action.

"We took Mr. Schinner’s suggestion of being on standby during the football games as another opportunity to serve," Cutler told Patch.

The pilot program ended with the 2011 football season, and there was no indication whether it would become common practice.

Fire Chief William Goddard said the department is currently understaffed for making the program permanent.

“This was a valuable exercise but it’s difficult for our units to stay there during the entire game when they have other emergency calls they respond to," Goddard said in a statement.

Although the department cannot currently keep ambulances at all sporting events, officials didn't rule out showing up for some of the "high risk" games in the future.

Fox said the county should still look into maximizing the utility of already existing resources.

"The idea was that, if they are going to be waiting for calls, why not wait at the football games?"

Cutler said it could cost the county $1.5 million to create a program in which dedicated staff and equipment would "rove" athletic events, but even then personnel could not make it to every event. That would require at least nine ambulances and four personnel per vehicle, according to Cutler.

Related Topics: AED, Emergency Responders, Football, High School Sports, Sports Injuries, and howard county fire and rescue