EMS Officers Union, FDNY Snapping Over Beaching of 'Gators'

EMS Officers Union, FDNY Snapping Over Beaching of 'Gators'


An Emergency Medical Service union leader has charged that the Fire Department's decision to end the use of smaller response vehicles for beach operations this summer will hamper medical rescue efforts.

THOMAS EPPINGER: 'Will need ton of ambulances.'

Tom Eppinger, who as president of Local 3621 of District Council 37 represents EMS officers, said that the FDNY will end the use of "gators" at Orchard Beach in The Bronx and Coney Island in Brooklyn this summer. The vehicles, which resemble golf carts and can carry EMS personnel and equipment, can gain access to beach areas that ambulances cannot.

"Response times are going to go up," he said in a June 2 phone interview. "We're going to have a ton of ambulances at the location every day."

Mr. Eppinger claimed that more ambulances would be responding to incidents on the beach that would normally be handled by nearby Emergency Medical Technicians on the gators. The result, he said, would be that ambulances from other areas would need to be called to respond and EMTs and Paramedics would take longer to get to patients on the beach by foot.

"This is a huge problem because we know that during the summer we're always the busiest, and the beach locations are very busy for us," he said.

Chief FDNY spokesman Francis X. Gribbon responded in an e-mail: "We will continue to respond to medical emergencies on the boardwalks and beaches as we have always done. These gator patrols responded to fewer than 200 calls last summer - total - as compared to approximately 200,000 medical calls citywide during the same period. Therefore, we've decided to better allocate these resources and improve overall citywide coverage, rather than have dedicated 'beach' units."

Despite Mr. Eppinger's claim to the contrary, Mr. Gribbon added, "Additionally, the gators cannot transport persons, so any serious injury requiring a transport required an additional ambulance response as well."