First Responders and Car Visit City Hall
Members of the Rockville Volunteer Fire Department visited City Hall before the Oct. 10 Mayor and Council meeting to thank the City of Rockville for supporting the department’s purchase of a new advanced life support chase car.
The Mayor and Council awarded RVFD a $57,000 grant in the city’s budget for Fiscal Year 2016, which ended June 30.
The car, a 2016 Chevy Tahoe known as ALS703, will be staffed around the clock with RVFD volunteer and career paramedics. It will supplement existing ALS service, which is provided with a paramedic transport unit (Medic 703) and the paramedic-staffed engine. The unit will carry a cardiac monitor/defibrillator, ALS medications, a Lucas CPR device and airway management equipment.
“It will directly affect every resident and visitor to the city because it will allow us to better deploy our paramedics, both volunteer and career, to meet the community’s needs,” said RVFD President Eric N. Bernard.
The chase car makes RVFD one of the first departments in the county to deploy a new service model, which places paramedics on rapid response vehicles and not just ambulances, which are still staffed around the clock by emergency medical technicians. “The paramedic is not tied to the cot,” Bernard said.
Learn more about the vehicle at http://rvfd.org/als-chase-car-placed-service/ and in the “Rock 11 Now” report at www.rockvillemd.gov/youtube. Search “RVFD.”
RVFD, which has more than 200 members and four stations, provides fire protection to Rockville. The city’s ongoing support of RVFD includes $10,000 a year that the city reimburses the department for its water bill.