The Day it Mattered

A Matter of Minutes

Last week, I was at a friend’s house at 3:00 p.m. when he suddenly became pale, disoriented, and appeared to be losing consciousness. I called 911. The call was forwarded to three different people, each asking me to explain our location. That is what it takes today to get help to your door in Carmel.

Soon, that changes. Thanks to a tough decision and focused work by a councilmember-led committee, Carmel will finally have proper street addresses in the May timeframe. Eventually one point of contact should be enough. What followed became a real-time test of decisions that took years to put in place.

The New System Worked

When my call came in, our ambulance had left just minutes earlier on another call. The county unit was more than twenty minutes away. In a cardiac event, that gap can be the difference between life and death. But, within minutes, a Carmel police officer arrived. A fire engine was immediately behind. And on that engine was an Advanced Life Saving (ALS) paramedic trained to deliver advanced life-saving care. Within minutes, the paramedic conducted a full workup and stabilized my friend.

Five Years of Hard Questions

None of this happened quickly. Five years ago, as a private resident, I was one of very few attending budget meetings and asking questions about our emergency equipment. Our fire engines, ambulances, and even our street sweeper were well past their useful life. For years, decisions were deferred. I kept showing up and speaking up until those needs were addressed. The street sweeper arrived first. The emergency equipment would take longer.

But aging equipment was only part of the problem. Our ambulance service had been badly mismanaged for years. A committee studied the issue and passed it along unresolved to this Council. In a public meeting, I asked former Chief Miller a series of direct questions. The answers were not comfortable. Our service was on the verge of losing its license. Both ambulances were breaking down regularly. It eventually became clear that our units had been making mutual aid calls while AMR collected the $2,000 fee that should have come to Carmel. Our city was effectively subsidizing a private company and receiving little in return.

The Cost of Delay

Kicking the can down the road has a cost that is easy to ignore until it isn’t. Recently, we have had times when both ambulances and engines were out of service, forcing Carmel to rely on equipment from outside agencies. That is not a strategy. It is the result of years of deferred decisions.

We Fixed It. Fully.

Last year, this Council unanimously voted to retain and rebuild our ambulance service by merging it with Monterey Fire and staffing our engines with ALS paramedics. When both ambulances failed, we moved quickly to secure a quality replacement unit. Last week, that backup ambulance and our new fire engine both entered service. Our new ambulance is on  the way and will be operational before June. We are now receiving compensation for mutual aid calls, and our new address system will close a critical gap in response times. For the first time in years, Carmel will have a fully functioning emergency response system.

What It Means

That afternoon, a professional, skilled, and focused first responder team was working on one thing: keeping my friend alive. Because of the decisions this Council made, they now have the equipment, training, and management to do exactly that.

(Note: To hear a podcast generated from this column go to cli.re/minutes)

Dale Byrne, Mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea

dbyrne@cbts.us