Mutual Aid requirements

[DrParasite]

going off a couple comments made in the directionless thread....

What are your agencies requirements to provide mutual aid?

at a former volunteer agency that I was a part of, the rule was was needed to have a crew in town before we sent a crew out of town on a mutual aid run. Which was usually a good idea, except when me (an inactive associate member) and a Firefighter who drives the ambulance (not a squad member at all, but a nice guy who was helping out who is a FF in town) came down for a M/A call at 2pm on a weekday, and I said we were going on the call, and if we got a second call while we were on the m/a run, if needed we would get a crew to backfill us either in house or from mutual aid.

currently the agency I am with will provide ALS mutual aid if we have at least 2 city units available... more often than not we don't. BLS mutual aid is the same way. We don't request BLS mutual aid unless it's an MCI, and due to where the call is, if we have a BLS unit going to a life threatening call, we won't call for m/a ALS because the crew will be at the hospital before the ALS crew arrives. These are all subject to a supervisors approval.

at other places, we don't use our 911 trucks for mutual aid under routine circumstances. we will send our transport trucks for 2nd calls in our 911 areas, and send them m/a elsewhere. Some of our dispatchers (like me) could also be.... creative with the units they dispatched.... if an out of town unit was in town, and even if they weren't one of our agency's units, if we were their dispatch center, we could send them outside of their primary, secondary, and tertiary response areas. Closest unit to the emergency goes, amazing concept.

do you have any requirements to send units out of your primary for m/a? what about to request mutual aid?

 

[fast65]

With the company I work for, we need to have two ambulances in the county if we're going to provide mutual aid for another district. Granted, depending on how far into the other district we go, we can still provide coverage for part of our county, and part of the other agency's. During the summer, it's not uncommon for us to have an ambulance providing mutual aid in another county for an entire 12 hour shift.

To request mutual aid, we typically need to be at level 1 (one ambulance available in the county). It doesn't happen too often, and if it does, it's usually only for an hour at most. If we are going to be at level 2 for more than an hour, we send out a page to get an extra ambulance staffed for a few hours.

 

[DavidM]

My Agency covers a large multi-town contiguous area adjacent to a medium-sized city and a small city. We're 1st in for m/a on the small city and 2rd in for m/a on the large city.

There isn't a specific policy written its left up to the shift supervisor. But generally if we're called to stand-by we'll go if we have at least 2 rigs in service. And even then we'll try to standby on the border of our territory unless ordered/requested differently.

Our dispatch is county based and we're simul-dispatched with local FD who provides first response. So if there's a call we automatically get banged out if the normal agency is all out of service.

 

[WuLabsWuTecH]

I work for two agencies. For both, we go no matter what. In the urban area, this is a no brainer since if we're out and someone in our district needs us, while our response time is 60 seconds, our mutual aid's response time is about 3 minutes, so not that bi of a deal.

In the rural area, things are a bit more tricky. Because our response time to the corners of our district is about 35-40 minutes, if we're going mutual aid with someone, the stuff has really had to have hit the fan. We take about 3 mutual aid runs a month because of this. But if they need someone, and are willing to wait 45 minutes plus for us, then we're going to go, because clearly they REALLY need us.

The exception is when there's a large event going on and knew they were going to need help in advance. While we have spare trucks, we often use them on the weekends when we have another truck go in for an oil change, etc. If there is a large event going on, and the next district over know about it, they are responsible for calling our chief if they want us to help cover either the event or their district. Because we don't have a spare truck on just over half of our weekends, our Chief will usually agree to provide M/A for them provided they drive a truck over to our station either the day of or the night before. We'll provide the crew and supplies and all of that, but we won't take one of our mainline vehicles out of service to cover for something you already knew was going to happen months in advance.

 

[Tigger]

If the city of Boston calls over the ambulance mutual aid radio and we have a truck nearby, all our dispatcher has to do is answer the radio and it is our call. Obviously we need to have a unit available, but they're pretty good about taking them (an idle truck is not making money...).

In the 911 contract town, we are considered as a fire department unit when it comes to mutual aid. Most surrounding fire departments have their own ambulances and have agreements with one another, our ambulance just isn't red. For multi alarm fires we will also send our dedicated 911 truck to fire scene standbys in another town, because that's what the agreement says. <_< Then we pull another ALS truck in to cover the town itself. This is all stipulated in the town authored contract.

We are also required (by the same contract) to provide ALS intercepts to a neighboring town's BLS ambulance. And once again, unless the dedicated truck is on a run, it is the unit that is supposed to respond to the intercepts. Even if we have an ALS unit in service at our quarters in town, the contracted town wants the ambulance with their name on it to be responding mutual aid, sometimes leaving their own town covered by a BLS unit.