Emergency Medical Services (EMS)
Did you know that over 75% of our calls are requests for medical assistance?
Emergency Medical Technician certification
All of our career firefighters are Washington State certified EMT-B and many also have a National EMT Certification.
Why might more than one ambulance respond to a medical call?
When an individual calls 9-1-1, dispatchers may alert career firefighters, and paramedics. Career firefighters may arrive in an ambulance or in an ambulance and a fire engine. If a patient needs advanced life support, paramedics may arrive in a Whatcom Medic One ambulance to provide ALS care.
Why might a fire engine and an ambulance go to a medical call?
The first arriving unit determines if additional resources are needed, If an additional unit is requested it responds from the closest station. Situations like this cause two stations to respond to a single incident. At times you may even see a third unit coming from Whatcom Medic One who provide the ALS services to Whatcom County. Finally, traveling with both an engine and an ambulance means that a crew can respond to the next emergency, whether fire or medical, without returning to the station for additional apparatus and wasting precious minutes.
