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Medical runs dominating city firefighters’ activity
When city department heads provide their monthly reports to the Greencastle City Council, there’s generally a gem or two to be culled from within the myriad of statistics.
For example, the recent Greencastle Utilities report shows that the Water Department pumps an average of 1,344,908 gallons per day.
Meanwhile, the Street Department notes that it used 2.16 tons of surface asphalt on patching and laying wedges just last month.
But the numbers that stood out for the Council at its recent meeting came from the Greencastle Fire Department and sparked Councilman Adam Cohen to call Fire Chief John Burgess to the City Hall podium.
The medical runs by GFD for the year have been “a little staggering,” Cohen said in asking Burgess to explain.
Fire department runs for Jan. 1- Aug. 31 totaled 897, Burgess noted, with 454 classified as medical runs.
“If you add in motor vehicle accidents, extrications and more, the total is 500,” the chief noted.
“Don’t quote me on these numbers,” Burgess continued, “but I believe we had around 500 medicals total last year.”
Actually he was just about dead on, the total EMS runs for 2020 were 535, down a few from 564 in 2019, according to department statistics provided to the Council last January.
“So even taking out the extrications, which are kind of a traditional fire department role, we’re running where 50 percent of our runs are medical runs,” Councilman Cohen observed.
Burgess had the exact total. “It’s 56.88 percent if you lump in extrications and all,” he reported.
That brought another question from Cohen.
“Our medicals runs, are they confined to the city and the township or do we run the county for medical?” Cohen asked.
Out-of-township runs are minimal, Chief Burgess said.
“Occasionally we might get called out of the city limits or out of the township but that very seldom happens,” Burgess said. “More than likely if that’s the case it’s an extrication or something.”
Cohen seemed satisfied by the explanation.
“I just thought it was a staggering number,” he repeated in reference to the medical runs.
Chief Burgess seized the opportunity to highlight other department runs.
Actual fire runs — not including mutual aid or something minor — have totaled 32 thus far in 2021. That amounts to 3.64 percent of all city fire responses.
Hazardous conditions such as gas spills, gas leak investigations and more have totaled 44 runs or 5.01 percent of all responses.
Service calls, assisting the elderly, police and other governmental agencies, are at 88 runs or 10 percent of city responses.
Good-intent calls, “where somebody thinks they smell smoke or they see steam and think it’s smoke,” Burgess said, total 111 runs for 2021. That’s 12.63 percent of all GFD runs.
False alarms are at 101 runs for the year, “which is down quite a bit from normal,” Burgess suggested. They come in at 11.49 percent for the year.
The false alarm runs for 2020 were at 261, while 2019 saw 401 cases.
In other business, other department heads also had reports.
-- Called to the podium by Council President Mark Hammer, Police Chief Tom Sutherlin took the opportunity to acknowledge Capt. Charles Inman’s actions in helping save a child at a Hendricks County accident scene on May 13.
“It goes to show that having a take-home car program and being able to use the vehicle while you’re off-duty” is valuable, the GPD chief said.
“I know he used the fire extinguisher from his car as the vehicle was catching on fire,” Sutherlin said. “We carry some medical supplies and things in our vehicles, so it’s definitely an advantage for us to be able to do that in situations like this, especially when you’re off duty.”
-- Clerk-Treasurer Lynda Dunbar reported that Oct. 23 is the tentative heavy trash day for city utility customers. She is working with Greencastle High School to reserve its main parking lot on that day. The city will be sending out letters covering the rules for the event in the near future.
-- Dunbar also noted that it will soon be possible to pay city water bills online. “It’s a slow process, but it’s coming,” she said, pledging to keep residents informed of the progress.