RIDEALONG: How Nampa growth impacts EMS response
NAMPA, Idaho — A growing Nampa is impacting Nampa Fire EMS. A failed Canyon County Ambulance Levy could have a trickle-down effect hampering response times. Engine 2 Captain Jeff Bowden is a 19-year EMS veteran and has seen the change in his role as the city grows.
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"When somebody calls 911, we show up and we solve the problem," Nampa Fire's Battalion Chief Ted Hardy bluntly said.
Simple enough, right? Well, it's not as cut and dry as you might think. The Nampa Fire Protection District staffs paramedics just like Canyon County, but they don't have ambulances.
Canyon County Paramedics are not just responsible for to 911 calls, but also for transporting patients to the hospital —one thing Nampa Fire EMS can't do. I spent three hours with Nampa Fire on Tuesday and twice Canyon County Paramedics arrived after us.
If the patient doesn't need transportation to a hospital, the ambulance is freed up to respond to the next call
"With Canyon County's resources being limited and increasingly limited, we find ourselves more often on scene with an ill or injured patient waiting for the ambulance to arrive," Hardy says.
"So this [Canyon County Paramedics] levy not passing has a trickle-down effect directly to you guys and your response times, because now, have to stay longer because response time is delayed," I clarify.
"Absolutely," Hardy says, "And extrapolate that one step further, it affects all of our citizens because that means that resource is now committed more often and longer and thus not available to respond to other emergencies."
"The goal of our response time is to get there as soon as possible," Nampa Fire Captain Jeff Bowden explains, "Four minutes is the gold standard for en route to make it on the scene to a residence on our call. I bet you we were in that four-minute range [to this call]."
Engine 2 Captain Jeff Bowden has been serving for 19 years, and as Nampa has changed, so has role.
"Traffic has compounded drastically. Even going Code 3 [lights and sirens] it takes a lot longer to push traffic out of the way. A lot of traffic is coming at us from all directions and it starts earlier and goes later," Captain Bowden adds.
