EMS Fly Cars: A New Lifeline for Rural Sullivan County Residents
Yeah, so fly cars are first response vehicles. They are not a new thing. Fly cars have been around for many, many years, and they're typically staff their vehicles like a Ford Explorer or a Jeep or something like that, so they're made to first respond to a scene, and they don't do any transporting of this patient, but they're able to get a provider to the patient sooner, quicker, and they can bring the tools that they need, the equipment they need to the patient's bedside, start care, and oftentimes they'll wait for the ambulance to arrive, but they can start care in the meantime. So it's, it's just a non transporting vehicle to, to get the provider there.
Patricio Robayo:Now like I said, this has been around for a while in other places. How did the Sullivan County go into this? How did this, you know, who who said, like, hey. We should bring this to this county and then and because, obviously, we have a need here because of majority of the EMS is volunteer, and then I know there's there's staffing issues. How did this this come to Sullivan County?
Alex Rau:Yeah. So it's been a while in the making. Back in 2019, 2020, Sullivan County commissioned a study by the Benjamin Center out of SUNY New Paltz, and they, they developed a a plan with some recommendations for improving our county EMS system. And that plan included things from training, trying to incentivize volunteers, trying to strengthen the system that we have in place, all the way up to county hiring and developing their own EMS system. So we're kind of somewhere in the middle.
Alex Rau:So this was a plan. We have an EMS advisory board which kind of vetted that plan from the Benjamin Center for a couple of for a little while and came up with some recommendations and this legislature that came in this year had a very strong desire. I think a lot of feedback they were hearing was that we needed to strengthen our EMS system and they certainly made that a priority goal for them in their 1st year. So that was something that was acted on very early. We began to meet the beginning of this year with Public Safety Chair, Luis Alvarez, who also has an EMS background and a strong desire to strengthen our EMS system.
Alex Rau:So, you know, kind of the story lined up. We put our heads together, and our legislature made a, a very strong commitment to supporting EMS and, more importantly, getting help to the residents of the county quickly.
Patricio Robayo:Yeah. Because, you know, I've you know, here you hear the story sometimes of folks, you know, no no fault out of the EMS, people who work now, just because, you know, some folks live in very rural parts of the county. But it's hard to sort of get to there. And, you know, you said volunteer services, so, like, you get figured that folks have to stop what they're doing, in their lives to get to, a vehicle to get to the person.
Alex Rau:Yeah. Correct. And, you know, this is not a unique situation to Sullivan County, New York. This is a statewide problem and I think every county in the state is in some sort of review and exploring EMS options. A lot of the volunteer EMS systems that began in the '50s, '60s and '70s, they were all sprung out of funeral home directors that were running a funeral home and an ambulance service.
Alex Rau:That kind of morphed into a 100% volunteer ambulance service across the county and in much of rural upstate New York with only very few commercial providers. I mean, Sullivan County had mobile medic EMS primarily for 20, 30 years. A couple of other services came in and out of the county, but for the most part, the volunteers have been carrying the load and it was unfortunately we're getting to a point where providers are hard to come by, the commitment, the training, the hours that it takes to volunteer, a lot of people are working multiple jobs, have a lot of other commitments and you know, we needed some way to supplement the existing volunteer system and and kind of decompress the pressures that are being put on those volunteer agencies.
Patricio Robayo:Right. And these e flight cars are staffed 247, in different parts of the county just basically just waiting, for something to happen. Is that right?
Alex Rau:Yeah. Correct. So we have, so there's two levels of care. There's basic life support, which is we call BLS, and there's advanced life support, which we call ALS. So Basic Life Support can do basic skills, CPR, bleeding control, administer oxygen, do assessments and then our ALS providers, Advanced Life Support, they can start IVs, give medications, treat heart dysrhythmias, they can do a lot of things.
Alex Rau:So, the fly car system that the county has begun began in middle of September and we have a total of 4 fly cars, 2 basic life support, 2 advanced life support and they are stationed and they're roaming throughout the county. And I mean, it sounds bad to say they're waiting for something to happen, but they're positioned to be a little more on the outskirts, on the fringes of the county so that we can support the needs of all county residents, while some of the other agencies like Mobile Medic, they're still an integral player in our our county system. And they kinda take care of the the center part of the county with Liberty, Monticello, Fallsburg, and such.
Patricio Robayo:Yeah. And I said, it's it's the need now. I I'm assuming it's it's so much more just because there's so many more folks are are who moved into our area. Since this has been in place, do you have any sort of success stories or so any kind of things that sort of stands out to you in in this in this time that we have had this here in the county?
Alex Rau:Yeah. I think, you know, they've been going, the fly car systems have been in place for about 10 weeks now. Again, started in the middle of September, and, you know, the numbers are looking pretty good. So we've had as of today, they've been dispatched 681 times, so that's averaging about 9 to 10 calls a day, which is significant. And these are calls where mutual aid is needed, which means that for whatever reason, the squad of jurisdiction is not available, the ambulance corps, so we have to call a neighboring ambulance corps to come help out.
Alex Rau:But in the meantime, we also dispatch those county flight cars to get there and start providing care. So, just as an example, I mean, I belong to a volunteer ambulance corps in Livingston Manor, and we were called to help in Grahamsville yesterday because Grahamsville had a challenge crewing up. And the fly car was able to be there about 30 minutes before we were and provide care prior to our arrival. So those are some of the success stories we see. We've had cardiac arrest calls, which are obviously probably the most serious calls we go to where every minute counts when you're talking about starting CPR.
Alex Rau:So our fly cards have been on scene very quickly. We've had 3 cardiac arrest saves already during that time. And I'm not saying it's only the fly cars. I think that's a team effort together with the rest of our EMS system, fire department response, ALS response, BLS response. So it's certainly a tiered approach, but the feedback has been great.
Alex Rau:The feedback from people that have used the service, you and I touched briefly, there's been some social media posts about how fantastic it was to have service there so quickly and that's exactly the type of outcomes we were looking for when we started this. It's getting providers to the bedside quicker to help patients, help our residents. And some of the other things it's doing also is, you know, allowing the fly cars to get there and kind of qualify what's going on. You know, we get dispatched to many medical alert alarm activations where a fly car can now get there and qualify whether that was, you know, hit an accident or an error, and we could put the ambulance back in service quicker so that they don't have to, you know, waste their time coming to a alarm that was set off in error.
Patricio Robayo:Yeah. That's that's I'm glad you mentioned that because that's something I I I didn't even think about, though, all those times that because I go to top board meetings, and I hear sometimes the reports from, the 5 departments and emails and how many times they actually go out into the field, on false calls, quote unquote false calls, like a trip alarm or or or something that, you know, that, wasn't a real emergency.
Alex Rau:Mhmm.
Patricio Robayo:I could definitely see that how this flight could get there and it says it says situation and and alert other others not to sort of come over and then set put the other ambulances back into into service, though.
Alex Rau:Yeah. They put them back in service so that they can handle, you know, calls that truly need an ambulance. It's also allowed us to help some of our volunteer providers. So, for example, if a volunteer ambulance corps can only maybe get an EMT, but doesn't have a driver available, we're leveraging the resource of that ambulance and we're able to put our fly car, we'll now go ahead and assist that crew and they'll drive for the EMT so that that volunteer ambulance corps can handle their own call. Again, it takes the pressure off moving mutual aid from another town into another town.
Alex Rau:So it's really kinda helped in, you know, with some staffing of the volunteer crews as well.
Patricio Robayo:Now if the EMS Black Car seems, to be a success as it goes on, is there any plan to sort of expand it and and get more cars?
Alex Rau:I think it's important or imperative that we look at the data, see where that takes us, see what the needs are. It's kind of hard to speculate. I mean, at this point, we're in a 2 year agreement with a company called Senior Care EMS, who is providing those flycars or operating those flycars. And we're going to kind of look at the data and see where that takes us. I think it's a little early to speculate.
Alex Rau:I mean, some things we will be using them. Obviously, just help in other ways. They've been doing some standbys already, so they've been out to some of the trunk or treats standing by. We've had them at fire scenes standing by. Know, they've been doing a lot of good things behind the scenes.
Patricio Robayo:That's great. That's and I'm really happy to hear, on a personal level just the service, has only gotten better. And he said, you know, especially if some calls like cardiac arrest, you you have minutes minutes, seconds really, to save somebody, and it's great that these these flight cards are already going out there and and saving lives.
Alex Rau:Yeah. We've seen about a 15 to 20 minute reduction in response times for, for EMS. So, So that's huge. I mean, to have that kind of success and that came early. I mean, that was within the first three weeks of service, we were seeing a 15 minute response time reduction, which is tremendous.
Alex Rau:And and I think it's only gonna get better from here.
Patricio Robayo:Yeah. No. Absolutely. Alex, before we go, is there anything else we have not touched on you want folks to know about the the EMS flat car or anything else that's going on in as a deputy commissioner for public safety?
Alex Rau:I think, you know, the fly cars are only one component of our EMS system. I don't think we should lose sight of the other aspects of our EMS system, while they're providing a lot of good service to the county. We still need people we still rely very heavily on our volunteer EMS services. We rely on our partners at MobileMedicsEmper CMS and we need folks to continue to get trained. We need to bring more providers, EMS providers into the system.
Alex Rau:So if anyone has a desire to help neighbors helping neighbors, there are EMT programs that run at SUNY Sullivan twice a year, and if you belong to a volunteer ambulance corps, often times those classes come at no cost. So I would encourage people that want to help, still look to join your volunteer ambulance corps. There's a lot of great work being done not only by the fly cars but by the EMS system as a whole and we need to continue to support that and we need volunteers and even some of the ambulance corps that were 100% volunteer are now moving into a blended system where they have paid crews as well or career crews. So there's no shame in that either. Again, it's a great opportunity.
Alex Rau:It's an employment opportunity to go get trained, become an EMT and there's a lot of jobs and a lot of need right here in Sullivan County that people can either choose to volunteer or make it a career option for them. So highly encourage them to not only rely on the fly cars but get involved.
Patricio Robayo:Yeah. Absolutely. You mentioned, Sunitself. I also attended a sort of a classroom at BOCES, where the kids were learning, sort of preparing for EMS certification or something like that. So it seems like they're getting the youth also involved.
Alex Rau:Yeah. That was an initiative and hats off to BOCES. My colleague, John Hauschold, our fire coordinator, and myself working together with BOCES try and get that program off the ground. They began last year, so they're offering it to high school juniors and seniors. They can now take an EMT program right through BOCES.
Alex Rau:It's a school year long program, but last year they graduated about 10 students that were all became EMTs and this year I believe they have the classes ongoing. I'm not sure what their enrollment is this year, but it is ongoing and it's pretty successful. So, yeah, we are trying to get people involved younger, but there's a job for everyone in EMS and again, if you're retired, if you can drive, you know, we're always looking for drivers. We're looking for EMTs, people to do administrative work, maintenance on ambulances. There's certainly something for everyone to do.
Patricio Robayo:Yep. Absolutely. Well, Alex, we'll talk into deputy commissioner for public safety, the overseas 911, and EMS. Thank you so much for talking to me about the EMS flight cars and and on this because it's such an important issue we have here in Sullivan County, and it's great that we have these new things coming out in Sullivan County, helping, helping people and saving lives.
Alex Rau:Yeah. Well, thanks for having me. And, hopefully, few people get involved. That'd be great.
Patricio Robayo:Yes. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Alex. We appreciate
Alex Rau:it. Alright. Bye bye.
