LAWRENCE — Lawrence Fire Department crews have been training this past week in preparation of deploying 11 new Zoll X-series Advanced Cardiac Monitors.
This comes after a much needed update — LFD has had the same monitors for the past decade.
The new monitors will offer real-time CPR feedback, real-time ventilation feedback, as well as the ability to transmit in real-time to the medical staff at the hospitals.
“We’ll attach the pads to the patient, we’ll begin to do our CPR, our ALS care. That monitor will feed back to us doing the correct compressions, if we need to push deeper or we need to push faster. Once we get an airway in the patient it will tell us if we’re providing the correct amount of oxygen," EMS Duty Officer Marc Hickson said.
Lawrence Fire Department has 14 civilian paramedics, four EMTs and 83 firefighters, who are also cross trained on these life saving measures.
Crews operate two ambulances out of LFD’s four fire houses.
“We now have stuff that can read the CO levels. So people who’ve been in a fire, we’re gonna be able to read the CO levels to see if they need oxygen or anything like that is a big deal," Civilian Paramedic Jarred Long said.
Long says the new devices will make his job safer and more efficient.
“With the technology that we have, we can limit the amount of people we need. Maybe just me, my partner and a driver and we can handle it from there, that way we can keep other apparatus in service to have people to be able to respond to other calls," he said.
The total cost for the new equipment is around $800,000.
LFD crews say they’ve not had any runs with the devices just yet, but are excited to see them in action soon.
