N.J.‘s MedCycle mobilizes EMT services on bikes for events, parades
By Julie Kayzerman, June 5, 2016, For NJ.com
Christopher Polgar has always identified himself as a recreational mountain biker and a professional emergency medical service provider, but it wasn't until a year ago that he envisioned those two interests converging.
As West Windsor was shutting down a volunteer first aid squad in March 2015, Polgar saw the old mountain bikes and bike patrol equipment collecting dust in the corner, just waiting to be thrown out.
Polgar, a former chief of the squad, saw an opportunity and founded MedCycle - a bike-based emergency medical service geared toward events where mobility and accessibility is crucial.
"EMS is changing as medicine advances," Polgar said. "We're at other stages now where paramedics are doing home care, and this could be another avenue."
While deploying EMS on bikes is a fairly common in cities, Polgar says that having them in suburban towns can offer a quicker emergency response time in hard-to-reach areas.
Based in Hamilton, Polgar said MedCycle provides fully-equipped bike patrol EMTs and paramedics for services ranging from parades to medical emergencies. The service can be a less expensive option for event organizers to having an ambulance on standby, Polgar said.
While an EMS presence is typically required at larger events, ambulance-based first responders are tied to a parked vehicle, sometimes at long distances from various areas at an event.
Just by having EMS on bikes staff in plain sight to the event's participants can offer a level of comfort to the event's attendees.
"Sometimes there are small requests. Women get blisters from shoes so they're not going to walk all the way to parking lot for that Band-Aid," Polgar said.
In addition, the bikes have the mobility to get through all different types of terrain in an environmentally-friendly manner and can offer a quicker response time in certain situations.
Polgar cited a situation that took place in 2013 when a 16-year-old injured herself after falling down in a hill in the woods near Switlik Park. Due to the location, rescue efforts were complicated by several fallen trees.
"That was an application that the bike team definitely could've been dispatched to," Polgar said. "We could've reached out to her and rendered patient care so there would've been no delay in patient treatment. That's what really got me the push to really get this going."
To Polgar, the bike team can serve as a bridge between the time someone is critically injured and the time it takes an ambulance to get there, rendering patient care until the patient is able to be transported to a hospital by ambulance.
Polgar has assembled a team of nine EMTs and paramedics that have the physical ability to maneuver a mountain bike through various obstacle while carrying between 50-70 pounds of equipment.
Each bike is fully equipped with lights, sirens and GPS systems. MedCycle patrollers also carry enough equipment to offer infant, child and adult care including supplies such as Asprin, naloxone, Epi-Pens, ice and heat packs, wound care, mass casualty kits, childbirth kids, blood pressure kits, AEDs, pulseOx monitoring and more, according to Polgar.
All of MedCycle's staff is seasoned, skilled and experienced in the medical field and are fully trained and certified to be able to navigate through crowds, difficult terrains and stairs in order to provide free patient care, Polgar said.
Although MedCycle is based in Hamilton, it offers its services state-wide and to surrounding areas. The services MedCycle offers may be found on the company's website.