Copyright 2006 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
By SUSAN WEICH
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
The mobile data radio system should be in 85 emergency vehicles by the end of this month.
People in St. Charles County who have emergencies should get the help they need faster, thanks to a new radio system being installed in ambulances and firetrucks.
The system provides fire and EMS crews with text directions and map readouts, and lets the crews notify dispatchers they are on the way without using a radio.
“This is going to be really, really helpful,” said Paramedic Rick Smotherman, 47, a 15-year veteran of the St. Charles County Ambulance District.
Smotherman made the comments as he acquainted himself with the new system, which should be installed in 85 emergency vehicles by the end of this month.
Previously, Smotherman had to look up addresses for the 640 square miles the district covers in a map book -- not always an easy task in the middle of the night.
Now Smotherman can head out the door and get the information he needs on the fly, just by touching the screen of a laptop.
The mobile data radio system also features an automatic vehicle locator. This helps dispatchers see at a glance on their 42-inch monitors the status and location of every unit in the county. This ensures that the closest vehicle is sent to the emergency, officials say.
Bob Watts, director of the county’s dispatching service, said the project to equip emergency vehicles in the county has been planned since 1997, when the county government took over dispatching services.
The county put away funding for the project for several years and decided about two years ago to go with a product that tied into its computer-assisted dispatching system.
The county paid a portion of the costs, a total of about $970,000, he said.
Every fire and EMS agency was given at least two mobile status terminals, which report a vehicle’s location and give a digital readout of call information. Some of the bigger, busier users decided to pay for terminals in all their vehicles and add on laptops.
The ambulance and fire districts bid out the laptops together and got them for about $4,000 each, which includes the cost of mounting them, Watts said. The county provided the software for the laptops.
The result is just now having an impact on dispatching services, Watts said.
“The job is changing from an audible type of thing where we had to listen to everything to a lot more visual one where we watch the map,” he said.
He said the ability of emergency crews to let dispatchers know they have arrived on the scene digitally instead of waiting for the radio traffic to clear will prove especially helpful in major fires and accidents.
Just recently, the locator feature helped pinpoint a landing zone for an ARCH helicopter. Dispatchers based the longitude and latitude of the landing on the nearby location of a firetruck equipped with one of the new radios.
As paramedic Smotherman tested out the mapping feature, he zoomed in on the location of a call that had just appeared on the screen.
“Something like this is going to save us some time and get us to you quicker,” he said.
St. Charles County paramedics John Romeo and Tammy Brinker arrive at a call in O’Fallon on Thursday. The new mobile data radio system helped get them there.