Hillsborough, N.C. — Orange County's director of emergency medical services has asked the Orange County Rescue Squad to stop responding to emergencies until county officials can review their work.
EMS Director Frank Montes de Oca said Friday that a preliminary report shows the volunteer squad, which responds to wrecks in the northern part of the county, might have endangered squad members and others during some of their responses.
“(They) demonstrated a significant lack of safety standards,” Montes de Oca said, adding that that the squad sometimes responded to emergencies when they weren’t called, operated power tools while standing in gasoline, dropped equipment along the road and responded without proper equipment to a possible drowning and other calls.
Orange County Manager Laura Blackmon said in a statement that the request for the rescue squad to "stand down" wouldn't compromise public safety. The county EMS remains fully staffed and is backed by firefighters in various departments who have been trained as first responders.
Montes de Oca said he doesn't have a time frame for completing the evaluation and ensuring Orange County Rescue Squad members are properly certified and have needed operating procedures in place.
His order has no effect on the South Orange Rescue Squad, a separate volunteer organization that covers the southern portion of the county form a station in Carrboro and provides similar services.



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July 18, 2008 4:55 p.m.
That is correct unless it has changed the chief and one asst. chief can have a siren in their personal vehicle. I wanted to mention that on the previous post but was running out of characters. They expect us to solve the worlds problems in 1000 characters or less.
July 18, 2008 4:38 p.m.
July 18, 2008 4:25 p.m.
July 18, 2008 3:58 p.m.
That's exactly right. The problem is that some volunteers don't understand this law and when the red light comes on, look out. Unfortunately one of these days, a good many of them may end up like this guy....
http://firefightingnews.com/article-us.cfm?articleID=45123
For those departments who don't allow their volunteers run red lights, their response times are just as good as the others. On top of that, many departments are now disallowing people to respond directly to scene in a POV. This is the SMART thing to do as too many POV's create a danger on scene. Like I said, there are a LOT of good volunteers out there. NC just needs to get with the times and change the rules.
July 18, 2008 3:35 p.m.