Me: Could you state your
full name and title?
A.D. Vickery: ? Vickery, referred to as A period D period Vickery. I am the assistant chief for resource management with the Seattle Fire Department.
Me: How long have you been with the Seattle Fire Department?
A.D. Vickery: 49 years.
Me: One of the reasons Medic One was so successful in the Seattle area was because of the response time. And this was mainly because of the placement of the fire departments and where the response vehicles come from. What goes into determining where they are placed?
A.D. Vickery: Well, way back, the fire department placed stations so that they would be within five minutes from any location in the city. So I have 33 fire stations. The determination was not based on EMS or medical, it was based on what’s called fire propagation. For every minute a fire continues to burn, it increases exponentially. SO the quicker you can get fire resources to extinguish it, the less impact the fire would have on that residence, that building or that community. So it was natural to take all these stations that were designed to respond within 4-5 minutes to any location in their neighborhood or neighborhood station, and leverage that into an emergency medical system.
Me: I know the first Medic One unit in the area was in 1969, are you familiar with any changes over the years that have brought them to their current state?
A.D. Vickery: Actually there has been. There was only one Medic One unit in 1969. Since that time some major things have taken place. One is what we refer to as a layered response. A layered response sends the closest fire apparatus, a basic life support unit from a district, and a medical unit with firefighter paramedics in it, of which currently there are 7 when we started with one. The other thing that significantly changed the program was the Medic 2 program, or citizen CPR. Citizen CPR allowed someone to recognize when 911 needed to be called and could initiate life saving measures from the standpoint of a citizen, not waiting until a professional got on scene. That single thing had a significant impact on our ability to currently have the highest resuscitation rate in the world, for patients who suffer a cardiac incident.
Me: Have there been any changes in basic life support units that arrive before the paramedic units?
A.D. Vickery: The only change that has been made is that automatic external defibrillator. Which has been added to every single one of those support units. Which allowed rapid defibrillation in the event of a cardiac dysrhythmia.
Me: does the fire department keep records for out of hospital myocardial infarction survival?
A.D. Vickery: Absolutely, but I’m pretty sure that Harborview and the University of Washington maintain those records, not the Seattle Fire Department. And those records are kept for every patient from the first run that Seattle Medic One ever had through what’s occurring right now. The Seattle Fire Department has almost 80,000 emergency medical requests for assistance a year.
Me: I’ve heard that the Seattle Fire Department may have some older photographs of Medic One, is there any way I could get access to these?
A.D. Vickery: You would have to check with Kyle on that, the original Medic One unit was a mobile home. It was very large, not really designed for responding rapidly in crowded city streets. But it was designed to be very large because they did not know if portable equipment would work. It had an on-board generator, and most of the things you would find in an emergency room. After two years or three years or that large mobile home, it was downsized because the portable equipment was proved to be dependable enough to utilize. Kyle may have a picture of the old Medic One van.
A.D. Vickery: ? Vickery, referred to as A period D period Vickery. I am the assistant chief for resource management with the Seattle Fire Department.
Me: How long have you been with the Seattle Fire Department?
A.D. Vickery: 49 years.
Me: One of the reasons Medic One was so successful in the Seattle area was because of the response time. And this was mainly because of the placement of the fire departments and where the response vehicles come from. What goes into determining where they are placed?
A.D. Vickery: Well, way back, the fire department placed stations so that they would be within five minutes from any location in the city. So I have 33 fire stations. The determination was not based on EMS or medical, it was based on what’s called fire propagation. For every minute a fire continues to burn, it increases exponentially. SO the quicker you can get fire resources to extinguish it, the less impact the fire would have on that residence, that building or that community. So it was natural to take all these stations that were designed to respond within 4-5 minutes to any location in their neighborhood or neighborhood station, and leverage that into an emergency medical system.
Me: I know the first Medic One unit in the area was in 1969, are you familiar with any changes over the years that have brought them to their current state?
A.D. Vickery: Actually there has been. There was only one Medic One unit in 1969. Since that time some major things have taken place. One is what we refer to as a layered response. A layered response sends the closest fire apparatus, a basic life support unit from a district, and a medical unit with firefighter paramedics in it, of which currently there are 7 when we started with one. The other thing that significantly changed the program was the Medic 2 program, or citizen CPR. Citizen CPR allowed someone to recognize when 911 needed to be called and could initiate life saving measures from the standpoint of a citizen, not waiting until a professional got on scene. That single thing had a significant impact on our ability to currently have the highest resuscitation rate in the world, for patients who suffer a cardiac incident.
Me: Have there been any changes in basic life support units that arrive before the paramedic units?
A.D. Vickery: The only change that has been made is that automatic external defibrillator. Which has been added to every single one of those support units. Which allowed rapid defibrillation in the event of a cardiac dysrhythmia.
Me: does the fire department keep records for out of hospital myocardial infarction survival?
A.D. Vickery: Absolutely, but I’m pretty sure that Harborview and the University of Washington maintain those records, not the Seattle Fire Department. And those records are kept for every patient from the first run that Seattle Medic One ever had through what’s occurring right now. The Seattle Fire Department has almost 80,000 emergency medical requests for assistance a year.
Me: I’ve heard that the Seattle Fire Department may have some older photographs of Medic One, is there any way I could get access to these?
A.D. Vickery: You would have to check with Kyle on that, the original Medic One unit was a mobile home. It was very large, not really designed for responding rapidly in crowded city streets. But it was designed to be very large because they did not know if portable equipment would work. It had an on-board generator, and most of the things you would find in an emergency room. After two years or three years or that large mobile home, it was downsized because the portable equipment was proved to be dependable enough to utilize. Kyle may have a picture of the old Medic One van.