New bike team gives Greenville County EMS expanded capabilities
By Jay King, Greenville Journal, March 2, 2022
Photos provided
Greenville SC - With the area’s population growth and proliferation of festivals and large gatherings, a new Greenville County EMS bike team will give the agency expanded capabilities to deliver emergency medical attention in a variety of settings — especially to some of Greenville’s largest outdoor events and festivals.
Team leader Daniel Vasquez says training of the initial five EMT team members has been a partnership with the Greenville Police Department, which has three squads of bicycle patrol officers. Since many of the large festivals and gatherings take place within the city, Vasquez says it makes sense to train with the agency and teams his new unit will be working most closely with and one that already has a training program in place.
He says the goal for the team is to recruit and train 12 members, which will give the unit a deep enough staffing bench to meet anticipated needs.
With an event like Fall for Greenville drawing an average crowd of 200,000 people to downtown, being able to get quickly to someone in a medical emergency can pose challenges, Vasquez says. With a traditional ambulance and the need to clear a path for the vehicle to get to the patient, response times average about 30 minutes. A pair of bike medics can cut that to 2-5 minutes.
Greenville County EMS Director of Operations Kevin Underhill says the team will also give people a chance to get to know EMTs on a different level.
“Us being out there and being more visible helps build public trust,” he says. “The more relationships you have the better you’re able to do your job.”
Vasquez and Underhill say the bike medics will have the same life-saving equipment that an ambulance carries and will offer the same level of care an ambulance would.
The team has applied for grant funding to help underwrite the purchase of the specialized bikes needed, which cost on average $1,500. They expect that funding to come through by the end of April, followed by recruitment and training of more team members.
The team expects to be operational by September in time for festivals and gatherings scheduled toward the end of the year.
EMS bike team fast facts:
- Will be comprised of 12 members
- Will deploy on heavy-duty mountain bikes averaging a cost of $1,500
- Expected to reduce response times in crowded environments to five minutes or less
- Will have same capabilities as ambulance and carry, for example, oxygen, trauma kits, AEDs for cardiac care and medications