By Taylor Boyd
The protocol that calls for dispatchers to wait for two-minutes after dispatching a rescue call before summoning the next squad soon will be eliminated, Patrick County Sheriff Dan Smith said.
“The change will be implemented as soon as the affected personnel can be notified and retained and all of the first responders are notified,” Smith said Monday, after broaching the subject at a March 3 meeting of the Emergency-911 Committee.
The sheriff’s office, like the vast majority of rural localities throughout the state, is responsible for operating the 911 communications center. The center receives more than 50,000 contacts annually and dispatches approximately 17,000 calls for service each year.
Approximately 85 percent of the calls for services are for law enforcement, and the remaining 15 percent are emergency medical and fire related calls, Smith said.
The sheriff and his command staff regularly review and revise departmental policy, and often rely on legal experts to help.
The policy regarding the dispatching of medical calls was recently reviewed by Smith and his team.
“Our standard protocol right now is we wait two minutes. We tone the call out to the respective rescue squad, and I understand that was put in place so that it would give the rescue squads a chance to answer the call,” Smith said at the meeting.
“The protocol agreed upon at that time stated that the volunteer rescue squads spread throughout the county would be called first to answer medical calls, and Station 8 would be called after two minutes of unsuccessful attempts to contact those volunteer squads,” Smith said.
While reviewing the protocol, Smith sought input from numerous people, including volunteer rescue squad leaders, 911 Coordinator Mickie Martin, Emergency Management Coordinator Steve Allen, the county attorney, members of the board of supervisors and attorney Jim Guynn, of Guynn, Wadell, Carroll and Lockaby in Salem, Virginia.
Guynn specializes in representing law enforcement and government agencies in civil lawsuits and is contracted by the Virginia Division of Risk Management on the behalf of local governments statewide.
“Nearly all of the parties I consulted with, including Attorney Jim Guynn, agreed that the two-minute waiting period did not reflect a best practice approach to dispatching emergency medical calls and could very well cause the county unnecessary liability,” Smith said.
He noted the policy has become increasingly problematic because of the shortage of volunteers, particularly in daytime hours, that caused many daytime medical calls to go unanswered during the first two minutes of call attempts.
“We have relied on our volunteers for decades, and they are and will always be critical in providing care for our citizens,” Smith said, adding that he knows that times have changed and “people do not volunteer like they used to,” due to job demands and other factors.
Those who do volunteer “have families too. They have to work and often cannot be available to be on standby, particularly during daytime hours” said Smith, adding that 63 percent of medical calls occur between the hours of 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.
Smith said he also called neighboring localities to inquire about their protocols, and learned that “nobody’s doing it like we are doing it right now.”
Eliminating the rule will mean “the dispatchers are not going to be forced to sit there and wait and wait before they tone somebody else out at the end of that two minutes. Two minutes is a lifetime” during emergency calls, he said.
However, Smith said he was told rescue squads would try to beat other squads to transports if the policy is eliminated.
“I would hope that as adults and captains and officers in these squads that you all could work it out,” Smith said. “This is no way, shape or form meant to cut anybody out of anything, we just have to start getting the information out there. It’s up to you all to determine how you want to do it. Our goal is to get the information and dispatch the information to get somebody help the quickest.”
Derek Wagner, captain of Jeb Stuart Rescue Squad, agreed that the two-minute tone rule needs to be changed.
“I do agree that sometimes our response times are horrible, especially on our second calls. I’ve listened to Henry County, ran in Henry County, done clinicals in Henry County. It’s a nice system,” he said.
Wagner said he thinks a shorter tone period, perhaps 30 seconds, would be sufficient, “but we don’t want to be all talking over one another and sound like a bunch of unprofessional EMS providers.”
Even though this protocol change won’t affect many of the rescue squads due to the areas they cover and the time it takes to go to another area, Wagner said he doesn’t “want to see this become territorial and we all start bickering and everything.”
“We’re grateful to have Station 8, because every now and again, I have to holler at them myself. I don’t think that’s a real big issue,” Betty Biggs, of Jeb Stuart Rescue Squad, said.
In 2020, Smith said a little more than 2,000 calls were run. “Out of those rescue calls run in 2020, 63 percent happened between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. and 37 percent occurred 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. That’s roughly about two-thirds of rescue calls are run during the daytime” when people are working, he said, adding that about 87 percent of all calls dispatched are law enforcement calls.
“It is a very stressful situation, and it happens more than 50 percent of the time, and that’s being pretty conservative with the numbers,” he said.
Smith said at this point, it’s obvious to everybody that Station 8 – the county’s paid service — cannot do everything by themselves.
“That’s not why they were created, and it’s not the intent,” Smith said, and recalled the paid service was created due to a myriad of issues in volunteer squads, including “staffing, or lack thereof, and it’s nobody’s fault It’s just the way it is.”
Smith said the county relied on volunteers for decades, but the volunteer rate has decreased.
“When I was 18 or 20 years old, you could go by a volunteer fire or rescue squad or fire department and you’d have people there every night. People have to make a living and you have a different mentality with youngsters these days. They just don’t want to volunteer,” he said, adding that neither volunteer or paid rescue squads solely can handle 100 percent of the calls.
“It is truly a 50/50 effort,” the sheriff said, and added when the change goes into effect, the respective volunteer agency and Station 8 will be dispatched simultaneously.
“The ultimate goal is getting citizens experiencing medical emergencies the help they need in the fastest and most efficient manner” possible, Smith said.
