Two Dixon paramedics assisting SoCal hospital during COVID crisis
They join a team of firefighter-paramedics from Fairfield who were also sent to Southern California medical centers.
(Photo courtesy Dixon Fire Department, Graphic by Solano NewsNet)
Two firefighter-paramedics from the Dixon Fire Department were dispatched to a hospital in Southern California as part of a state mutual assistance request, the agency wrote in a social media post this week.
Taylor McAbee and Grant Haynie were assigned to the UCLA’s Olive View Medical Center after the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services requested assistance from local fire departments with hospital staffing, which has experienced shortages due to the ongoing coronavirus health pandemic.
“We are proud to serve the greater state of California in this way, but we will never compromise our staffing levels to care for our local citizens here in Dixon — you will always be our priority,” a Dixon Fire Department spokesperson wrote in a press release.
In addition to the two paramedics from Dixon, four firefighter-paramedics from Fairfield were also dispatched to Southern California. Three of those firefighters are assigned to a hospital in Panorama City, while one was dispatched to a hospital in Petaluma. The Rio Vista Fire Department and Suisun City Fire Department have also dispatched firefighter-paramedics to Southern California, according to officials.
While the rate of coronavirus infections have sharply increased statewide — Solano County recently logged 100 fatalities caused by the virus since the start of the pandemic — the rate of infections and deaths in Southern California has been unprecedented to the point where some ambulance crews have been told not to transport patients to area hospitals if the victim is not expected to survive.
The directive to several ambulance companies came after the Southern California region experienced a significant shortage of hospital intensive care unit bed space, with some hospitals running out of ICU beds entirely.
Some hospital staff have reported cardiac arrest alarms sounding at an increased rate since the holidays.
“We’ve never seen this much death before,” one nurse told the Ventura County Star newspaper. “I’ve been in health care for 22 years, and I’ve never been [this] scared.”
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