Alycia Ambroziak
The Gazette
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Many St. Lazare residents may not yet be aware of it, but their town got a lot safer in the past couple of weeks, as the municipal Medical Response Unit merged with the fire department, providing onsite, 24-hour service.
"Our residents can sleep better now knowing there is someone on duty at the firehall 24 hours a day, seven days a week," Mayor Pierre Kary said last week at the announcement of the June 6 merger.
In effect, the town's 15 first responders, who were on-call volunteers for the past seven years, are now city employees and work out of the firehall at 1875 Bedard Ave.
"We brought the volunteer service as far as we could; it was time to bring it to the next level," said Charlene Vacon, head of emergency medical services for the town.
The first responders receive about 600 calls a year.
"That didn't include calls to the fire department," Vacon said.
As well, all 30 part-time volunteer firefighters have now been trained as first responders.
Now, there will always be two people at the firehall ready to answer any life-threatening emergency, like cardiac arrest, airway obstructions, severe external bleeding, loss of consciousness or delivering a baby.
In fact, first responders helped deliver a baby boy in the early morning of June 6.
"Both baby and mom are doing well," said Fire Chief Daniel Boyer.
First responders will be given the option of training to become firefighters,
Vacon said, adding that any future first respond-ers hired will also take firefighting training.
She said the merger, which cost the town of 20,000 residents about $300,000, will also allow first responders to do more preventive work, like visiting schools and seniors.
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