The Bloomington City Council has approved $4.3 million for EMS and Fire equipment. The amount will be spent over the next 10 years. This year the city will upgrade defibrillators, upgrade CPR devices and add Power-Load devices to all ambulances. As a result all emergency response vehicles will have equipment to provide necessary services.
“We are adding on, this is a big thing that we are excited about, that I think our people are going to be excited about, it is called a power lift device that gets mounted in the back of the ambulance,” Deputy Fire Chief Cory Matheny said. “And so essentially we are taking all of that weight that people had to lift with their lower backs … off them.”
Currently each person lifts about 2,400 pounds over their shift while making an average of five transfers each day.
“By adding this device in there we are taking it down to about 1000 pounds,” Matheny said.
That’s a 58% reduction in what people have to lift per shift. Taking that load off of their lower back is important because back injuries are one of the leading types of work related injuries.
“The stats are that one in four EMS workers are going to have a career ending injury in the lower back area,” Matheny said.
OSHA estimates that the typical back injury costs $75,000. Injuries also increase overtime pay because someone has to fill in for the injured worker.
The Fire Department believes that having better equipment with employee concerns in mind will also help with employee retention and recruitment.
“I think the biggest thing … is the fact that we are equipping more units with this higher technology equipment,” said Fire Chief Eric West. “I mean we don’t carry the full what we call Life Pack 15, which is the full monitoring defib device. We carry those AED’s in some vehicles. Now since we are going to get all of this stuff we are going to be carrying all of that equipment in every vehicle. Fire apparatus and ambulances are all going to be the same.”
The equipment that will be purchased under this agreement will better serve citizens requiring services and aid city employees.
