Magen David Adom Yerushalayim has added a welcome member to its first-response fleet, a paramedic advanced life support ambucycle. To date, its two-wheeled response fleet has been limited to emergency medical technicians (EMT) which deliver what is referred to as basic life support. This is of course in addition to its fleet of ambulances, not in place of.
The paramedic units, referred to as advanced life support (ALS), carry more sophisticated equipment to permit the paramedic to being cardiac monitoring, along with pharmaceutical intervention, a level of treatment above the scope of training of EMTs. The new edition does not display the familiar MDA red and white exterior, but the lime green that is used on fire trucks and other emergency vehicles in the United States as well as paramedic ambulances in Israel.
It is easily understood how the ambucycle’s response time is considerably better than an ambulance and when the call signals a paramedic is required, the ALS ambucycle will be dispatched along with a BLS ambucycle and a paramedic ambulance.
The ALS ambucycle began serving residents of Yerushalayim last week and it is part of a pilot program. In its first week in service MDA officials have already realized just how effective it is. In one case, the paramedic arrived at a motor vehicle accident and determined the injuries were minor, turning control of the scene over to EMTs and informing the dispatcher to cancel the paramedic ambulance response, freeing that vehicle for another call.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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One Response
What’s the chiddush? Ichud Hatzalah has paramedics on ambucycles for years. I guess lime green is a really big improvement. Additionally, and EMT can cancel an ALS ambulance when they see the situation is minor.