MARSHFIELD – Emergencies come in all shapes and sizes. So do the people that first responders help. Have you ever thought about the gurneys used in an ambulance, and how poorly that adult-sized gurney would fit a small child or an infant?
Radiologic Technologist Sadie Blair from the Marshfield Medical Center in Neillsville is also a volunteer emergency medical technician (EMT) for the Greenwood Area Ambulance Service in Greenwood. She nominated the organization for Security Health Plan’s Employee-Driven Corporate Giving grant. Each month Security Health Plan awards this $1,000 grant to a different charity or organization that is nominated by a Marshfield Clinic Health System employee.
The funding from the grant was used to purchase a Quantum ACR4 (Ambulance Child Restraint) – a fully adjustable harnessing system that allows EMTs to safely transport newborns and children weighing anywhere from four to one-hundred pounds with a single device. The ACR4 contains four color coded restraints for different sized patients for quick and easy selection on a call: extra small (4-11 lbs.) small, (11-26 lbs.), medium (22-55 lbs.) and large (44-100 lbs.).
Blair nominated the department for the grant because she has observed how gaps in age, height, and weight existed were not covered by the different child restraints that the ambulance had been using. The Quantum ACR4 will eliminate these gaps and give them the versatility they need to give the highest quality of care to their pediatric patients.
“Emergency medical services is vital to the wellbeing of the community,” Blair said. “Our ambulance service covers 198 square miles of mostly rural areas. We have one of the longest transport times to local hospitals; it is crucial we have the best equipment for our patients.”
Delmond Horn, the EMS director at Greenwood Area Ambulance Service, said the ACR4 will be instrumental in transporting a wide variety of patients more safely and comfortably.
“It really brings us into a newer level of compliance. Before, we were using an infant car seat or another pediatric board that wasn’t very comfortable for all our patients,” Horn said.
Blair noted that the Greenwood Area Ambulance Service had enough donation money left over to purchase a hospital grade temporal thermometer as well. Horn said other forehead thermometers’ readings are nowhere near as accurate, and the methods of taking a temperature under the arm or in the patient’s mouth are often difficult to perform, given the patient’s condition at the time of transport.
For more information on the Greenwood Area Ambulance Service, please visit https://greenwoodwi.com/fire-ems/.
