March 29, 2015 (San Diego)--San Diego County only requires that ambulances response within 30 minutes in rural areas, unlike urban areas where the limit is 10 minutes. The American Heart Association reports that brain death and permanent death start to occur in 4–6 minutes after someone experiences cardiac arrest. The County's response time requirements are far too long for a heart attack patient to survive without brain damage. In addition, these times mean it sometimes takes more than the "golden hour" to reach a hospital following a trauma, stroke or other medical emergency, the time frame that medical experts recommend for saving lives.
Take our Poll: Should San Diego County require faster ambulance response than the 30 minutes currently required in rural areas?
Vote here: http://eastcountymagazine.org/poll/should-county-require-faster-ambulanc...
Comments
Music shows should not come before safety.
I am personally aware of cases where people died or nearly died due to extremely slow response times. Nearly two hours in one case. The response times along highway 94 are particularly torublesome, and also portions of 8 in the eastern areas and towns along that southeast quadrant. I'm not talking about people living on a mountaintop or in a box canyon. These are people who lived in towns or within 5 minutes of a major highway.
Part of the waterfront park was from grants but some was general funds that could have been used on emergency services. Certainly we shouldn't spend money on a stadium if we can't get amubulances into towns or even to accidents on our highways in a timely enough manner, at least that is my view.
I was going to bother, but
The standard for rural response is not set by the county
Well maybe instead of spending money on a Chargers stadium
and a waterfront park around the County administration center where Supervisors meet, they should be spending money on more ambulances and fully staffing every fire station instead.
EMT's and Paramedics
The training required is almost to the level of a Registered Nurse.
The east county is a large area with many small communities that don't have the tax base to support fire and ambulance service. People depend on friends and neighbors for support during an emergency. Fire stations are staffed by volunteers. The problem is where is the funding?
Elected "officials"
Here is a better poll"
Considering our elected "officials" should we:
1) Give them a pay raise for doing a good job?
2) OFF WITH THEIR HEADS?