By Micheline Maroni
Newsday
SUFFOLK COUNTY, N.Y. — Suffolk police have added a specialized emergency medical team that can respond to disasters in remote areas without easy access to a hospital or other emergency care.
County Executive Steve Levy announced the creation of the Medical Crisis Action Team (Med-CAT) at a news conference in Bay Shore yesterday.
The concept was the brainchild of Scott Coyne, chief surgeon and medical director of the Suffolk Police Department, who said the idea for the medical SWAT team was a response to Sept. 11.
The team consists of 15 Suffolk police officers who underwent six months of intensive training in advanced emergency medical care and who are certified paramedics or critical care EMTs. The officers were recruited from the department’s high-risk specialized units.
Levy said the team also has four volunteer police surgeons trained in a range of emergency backgrounds.
“In the case of a catastrophe, we have a team ready to go,” Levy said. “The main thing is to be prepared. Hurricane Katrina woke a lot of people up, and that was on the mainland.”
Five of the 15 police officers are stationed on Fire Island, where there are no hospitals.
Team members will continue performing their regular police jobs but would respond to a mass casualty event, such as biological terrorism, a plane crash, a hurricane, bombings or hostage rescues.
“I realized that by the time the feds or the state get here with their teams, it could be a day or two,” Coyne said of a potential disaster scenario. “The golden hour in which a life can be saved is often a golden minute.”
Ian Levine of the Ocean Beach Fire Department said Fire Island has been well served with eight fire departments, three of which have ambulances, but he also said the Med-CAT team will be a welcome addition because of the growth in tourism.
Staff writer Ridgely Ochs contributed to this story.