IPMBA News

In the Spirit of Cooperation

by Ray McCahery, EMSCI #221
Philadelphia (PA) Fire Department

During the summer leading up to the historic Papal visit to the United States, Philadelphia Fire Department’s EMS Division realized that while they would be able to provide adequate resources to cover the large crowds of spectators, such as ambulances and foot patrols, they had a severe resource gap:  EMS Bike Teams.  Philadelphia Fire EMS has only 50 bike paramedics.

While no-one could predict exactly how many people would descend on Philadelphia during the conclusion of the World Meeting of Families and the Papal Mass on the Parkway, a few things were certain.  This would be the largest National Special Security Event the Secret Service has ever coordinated.  Multiple venues would be stretched across Philadelphia from river to river.  The total length of the area was 2.5 miles.  Unknown was how wide the event would get, especially given the limited number of entrances to ensure that everyone in attendance was screened by magnetometers.

The Philadelphia Fire Department was able to secure 100 ambulances.  These were deployed around the City to assist with the Papal events as well as handle 911 calls.  An additional 100 all-terrain utility vehicles were also procured to respond to emergencies within the deployment area. Further, foot patrols were sent into the areas where the thickest crowds of spectators waited hours for a glimpse of the Pope.  But as we all know, EMS bikes fill that niche where ambulances and utility vehicles can’t go and foot patrols take too long to respond.  But with only 50 trained bike paramedics, we were faced with a shortage we had to fill.  It was time to think creatively. 

One of the first things I did was contact IPMBA for a list of EMS agencies in Pennsylvania and surrounding states that have EMS bike teams.  We wanted all of our personnel to be trained to the IPMBA standard so they could operate their bikes safely and effectively within the crowds. 

Fortunately, both Pennsylvania and New Jersey have lots of EMTs and Paramedics trained to use bikes in the line of duty.

Philadelphia also has a lot of colleges, many of which have student EMS teams utilizing bicycles.  Two of the largest are the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University, both of which use IPMBA training.  We approached officials at the universities as well as surrounding EMS agencies and requested EMS bike personnel to assist us.  Although most agencies wanted to help, they were limited not by the number of trained personnel, but by the number of bicycles they owned. 

We approached the World Meeting of Families (WMF) with an idea that was born out of collaborative talks between EMS providers.  If the WMF would buy the mountain bikes, we would be able to deploy more than a hundred bike-mounted EMTs and Paramedics.  In exchange for donating their services, the EMS providers would be given the mountain bikes that they used during the Papal Visit.  The WMF agreed, and in the spirit of cooperation, a dozen EMS agencies along with the local universities provided almost 75 additional EMS bike personnel for three days.  Penn Student Medical Response Team alone provided 22 volunteers. 

The weekend of the Papal festivities and Mass saw an estimated one million people surge into the area.  Bike EMTs and Paramedics responded to hundreds of 911 calls and never experienced any problems.  EMTs from New Jersey working side-by-side with Paramedics from Pennsylvania was not an uncommon sight.  The Papal visit to Philadelphia may have been the largest EMS Bike Team deployment in the United States to date and we are proud to have been part of it.

Ray is the Philadelphia Fire Department’s EMS Executive Officer.  He was certified as IPMBA EMS Cyclist in 2006 and an Instructor in 2008.  He has also completed the IPMBA EMS Cyclist II Course.  He can be reached at Ray.McCahery@phila.gov

(c) 2016 IPMBA.  This article appeared in the Winter 2016 issue of IPMBA News. 

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