Wake EMS adding souped-up cars, more highly trained medics

RALEIGH, N.C. — Wake County's Emergency Medical Services Department is adding several souped-up Dodge Chargers as part of a new program designed to bolster its ambulance fleet at the same time it deploys more highly trained paramedics to drive them and to make ambulance use more efficient.

The county announced Monday that the new group, known as advanced practice paramedics, will be dispatched in the cars to help treat the most acute patients and prevent emergencies in high-risk patient populations such as the elderly.

Previously, the paramedics rode only in ambulances.

Orange County also has begun to issue the Chargers, which are being used by the Highway Patrol and several local police departments in recent years, to paramedics.

The new muscle cars offer both speed and trunk space for paramedics to respond quickly to emergencies, potentially stabilizing patients until an ambulance arrives. Officials say the cars also get far better gas mileage than ambulances.

In the past, dispatchers sometimes used two ambulances to provide the necessary number of paramedics for a call at which procedures required more than one person with their level of training. The new program will allow many of those patients to be treated by a paramedic in a Charger and one in an ambulance while the second ambulance remains in service.

The advanced paramedic program involves 17 experienced medics who received intense classroom and clinical training for the new roles, the county said.

“We have a shortage of paramedics, both nationally and in the state of North Carolina,” Dr. Brent Myers, Wake County EMS director, said. “This program allows us to make more efficient use of the paramedics that we do have, not only by getting the paramedics where we need them the most, but also by investing their time in prevention with the most acute patient populations that we see.

70 Comments

WRAL.com welcomes your comments on this story. All comments are moderated prior to publication based on our posting guidelines. Please review them prior to posting and if your message is not approved.

VIEW ALL 70 COMMENTS

This story is closed for comments. Comments on WRAL.com news stories are accepted and moderated between the hours of 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Latest Comments

First, I would like to say Thank You to WRAL for adding in correct information, unlike the N/O...."first of its kind in the nation", Orange County has been doing this for years(1997) and started using V6 chargers about a year ago, along with Expeditions...etc. Thanks!

Lake Gaston
January 8, 2009 12:12 p.m.

"I think if we can handle driving a 5 ton or so ambulance fast we can handle driving a car fast"----

Not even the same animal. Having done both, I suggest you guys get some good training on how to drive those vehicles at high speeds if that is what you plan on doing with them. Maybe EMS and SHP can work something out at the driving track. EVDO course given by the state is NOT enough.

leo-nc
January 8, 2009 11:41 a.m.

If my comments were taken as derogatory toward EMS personnel, I apologize, for that was not the intent. My concern is the equipment, namely high horsepower/high torque rear wheel drive vehicles that must go in ALL types of weather and road conditions.

They are a different animal....demand that you be given the opportunity to train in them on closed road courses.

dws
January 7, 2009 8:43 p.m.

Medical Director of the Year Cardiac Arrest Save Rates twice the national average Consistent response times One of three cities doing Induced hypothermia The citizens of Wake county get all this with a smaller budget and less apparatus than most similiar sized EMS systems. Yeah, that points to ineefective leadership. As for the Chargers, these are emergency vehicles and are expected to hold up to the rigors of emergency response. There is a reason nobody in public safety uses the Toyota Prius. The Charger is cheaper to buy, operate and maintain than an SUV. But nobody would have complained if the county went and bought $40,000 Suburbans. Instead of being so negative use that same energy and thank a medic for the sacrifices that they and their famalies make to serve our great community.

centermedic
January 7, 2009 7:52 p.m.

I think if we can handle driving a 5 ton or so ambulance fast we can handle driving a car fast. It seems to me that a car has much better handling than a box truck. Why is it if the Fire Dept. got a new several hundred thousand dollar apparatus or the police outfit themselves with the best assault rifles on the market nothing is said? We are the only ones you got for a quite possibly the longest ride of your life. Sometimes we need a little help too. You get a team of Doctors and Nurses at the hospital you should expect the same care outside of the hospital. The car is just that a car. My understanding is that this car is already under county contract so we pay a fraction of the actual cost. I suppose a hybrid Honda would work or and electric car but not in the time that it is needed to work. This is a large county.