Fire District takes over ambulance service at Verdes
Posted 11/27/15
The Rio Verde Fire District has a strong track record of responding to emergency incidents with a response time consistently averaging four minutes or less.
This response time meets the national …
You must be a member to read this story.
Join our family of readers for as little as $5 per month and support local, unbiased journalism.
Current print subscribers can create a free account by clicking here
Otherwise, follow the link below to join.
To Our Valued Readers –
Visitors to our website will be limited to five stories per month unless they opt to subscribe. The five stories do not include our exclusive content written by our journalists.
For $6.99, less than 20 cents a day, digital subscribers will receive unlimited access to YourValley.net, including exclusive content from our newsroom and access to our Daily Independent e-edition.
Our commitment to balanced, fair reporting and local coverage provides insight and perspective not found anywhere else.
Your financial commitment will help to preserve the kind of honest journalism produced by our reporters and editors. We trust you agree that independent journalism is an essential component of our democracy. Please click here to subscribe.
Need to set up your free e-Newspaper all-access account? click here.
Non-subscribers
Click here to see your options for becoming a subscriber.
Register to comment
Click here create a free account for posting comments.
Note that free accounts do not include access to premium content on this site.
I am anchor
Fire District takes over ambulance service at Verdes
Posted
The Rio Verde Fire District has a strong track record of responding to emergency incidents with a response time consistently averaging four minutes or less.
This response time meets the national standard set by the National Fire Protection Association and recommendations set by the American Heart Association.
A quick response time allows Rio Verde emergency personnel to mitigate an emergency medical situation before irreversible tissue and organ damage occurs, and provides for fast attack on a structure fire before the fire extends into hidden parts of the building.
The Verde Communities are a great place to live. The community is nestled in the upper Sonoran Desert and is isolated from, but in close proximity to, the Phoenix metropolitan area. However, this isolation creates challenges when providing emergency services.
Following initial emergency response by the Rio Verde Fire District, ambulance transport response was often lagging by as much as 30 minutes.
In 2011 the Rio Verde Fire District entered into a public/private partnership with Rural Metro Corporation to base and staff an advanced life support ambulance at Rio Verde Fire Station 441.
This partnership resolved the response time issue and placed a transport ambulance on the scene within four to six minutes of dispatch. Unfortunately, in April of 2015 Rural Metro Corporation made a corporate decision to terminate this contract arrangement.
With this notification, the Rio Verde Fire District applied to the Arizona Department of Health Services for a Certificate of Necessity to operate an ambulance transport service and was awarded the Certificate on Nov. 10.
This certificate allows the Rio Verde Fire District to continue its quick transport response while maintaining quality control of medical care for members of the community, from the initial response to the transfer of patient care at the receiving hospital emergency department.