Your Voice: A letter from Lebanon's Fire & EMS Chief

2015 was a year of many changes as well as accomplishments for Lebanon Fire & EMS. I was sworn in as the new Fire Chief for Lebanon in January of 2015. On the very same night that I took the oath of office for the Fire Dept., I was asked if I would also consider being sworn in as the Rescue Dept. Chief. After a few moments of thought, I agreed, as one of the things I wanted to see, was the eventual merger of these two departments once again.

Shortly after being sworn in, I learned that there were 8 serious OSHA violations that had been imposed onto the Rescue Dept. The OSHA inspection had occurred back in February of 2014. Up till the time I took office, nothing had been done to correct any of them. No one in the department had worked with OSHA nor had asked for an extension on the fines. As the new Chief, I was given 30 days by OSHA, to correct the violations or pay $1,000 per violation equaling $8,000. That amount would again be charged per day over the course of the year that the fines were ignored and had remained in outstanding violation. I knew there was absolutely no way the department could financially survive such catastrophic fines. A plan to correct the violations was quickly put into place. With the help and hard work of some dedicated Rescue members, each violation was addressed and corrected. By the end of the 30 days, OSHA was satisfied with our progress. Only a small late fee of less than $100 was levied.

Soon after that, I went into negotiations with Frisbie Memorial Hospital. The education coordinator at the hospital offered us a no cost grant, which covered the educational costs for students to take an EMT Basic class. We gained four new members and a junior who attended the class, these members are currently in the testing process, awaiting testing dates for practical and written tests.

In May, Selectmen Thompson and myself went to Massachusetts and visited Comstar, our medical billing company. Lebanon was paying some of the highest rates in the area, due to problems in the past the company had experienced with previous administrations. The meeting showed Comstar that we were willing to work with them to make positive changes. For the first time they were allowed direct access to billing data. This made the billing process much more streamline. Comstar agreed to lower their rates for our ambulance billing. This would save the department hundreds of dollars over the course of the year.

In June, I met with the Sanford Chief, Milton, NH Chief and Frisbie Memorial Hospital to talk about the $2000 billing they had begun charging the department in 2014, due to our ambulance not attending all the town's medical calls and placing a strain on these other agencies, who were responding in our place. After 6 months our new agency had missed almost no calls. The changes were impressive enough that each agency agreed that Lebanon was no longer a strain to their resources. Any further aid given by these three agencies to Lebanon would be considered mutual aid and to no longer charge Lebanon $2000 per call that they responded to, the previous bills that had accrued were also dropped.

June also saw a town vote to formally merge the Fire and Rescue Departments into one agency. Throughout the majority of 2015, each station contained fire apparatus as well as an ambulance. The station on Upper Cross Rd became known as Station 1 and the station on Carl Broggi Highway became known as Station 2. At night responders who were signed up to cover could go to the station closest to their home for the vehicle that was needed. This dramatically cut down on response times. The town also passed a budget, that for the first time, would pay for crews to be in Station 1 on duty. Mon-Fri 6:00 am-10:00 pm, there are crews of two people always at the station. From 10pm-6am responders cover from home. Weekends are covered at station 6:00 am-6:00 pm and from home 6:00 pm-6:00 am. Burn permits are also now written out at Station 1 to residents between the aforementioned hours.

In 2015, education was made a priority. Cross training fire members to get EMT certifications as well as EMT's to pursue Fire I & II certificates was strongly encouraged. In the most recent Fire certification class we had 5 people step up to the plate. Two of our basic EMTs are currently enrolled into the Advanced EMT class and another has just achieved Advanced status. We are fortunate to have been able to hire a number of new medical personnel one of them being a paramedic. Work is now being completed to restore the department back to the paramedic level.

In October we went on the road doing Fire Prevention. The NFPA theme for the year was "Hear the Beep Where You Sleep". We presented highly interactive programs to children in multiple daycares as well as a full Smoke House, courtesy of Rochester Fire, for Kid Connection, the after school program at the Hanson Elementary School.

Another milestone for Lebanon was the signing on of our first ever Medical Director. Dr. Scott Hamilton an emergency medical physician affiliated through Southern Maine Health Care in Sanford, agreed to sponsor Lebanon after following all the positive changes that were being made. This is another step in the right direction for our medical services. Dr. Hamilton will perform periodical quality assurance audits on our call reporting and also provide the staff with some high quality medical trainings.

All of this is made possible by the dedicated members of the department and the ongoing support from the people of Lebanon. Your support of our agency has made a difference. Our response times are now instant from 6:00 am to 10:00 pm, many folks have commented on how quickly we now arrive on scene. In addition, from July 1st when the first per diem shift started, not a single call has been missed. In fact, we have been asked to do mutual aid rescue calls in Shapleigh, Berwick, Acton and Sanford. A new mutual aid agreement was formally agreed upon for the residents of district 3 closest to Milton. Serious medical calls would warrant a response from Milton EMS, as they can be there in less than half the time as a crew from Station 1. Steps are being made all the time to do what is best for patient care. In return we agreed to cover calls from Milton if they are already out of town on calls of their own.

This past spring, I also assumed the role of Emergency Management Director for the town of Lebanon. Last December an online drill was run with the County EMA involving many of the areas Directors. The scenario was a massive blizzard with deadly low temperatures which ran non-stop for 12 hours. Lebanon kept up with the scenarios and was told they did very well. All in all it was a valuable learning opportunity.

This Christmas we were also able to help many local children. A total of 83 children were signed up to receive toys, ranging in age from Newborn to age 16. In addition, a number of people walked-in and received toys, we worked with the local schools to help some families, and sadly, we helped a family that experienced a fire Christmas week. Due to the generosity of the community, our department was able to provide Christmas toys to about 100 local Children!

A review of our 2015 calls, January to December the Rescue has responded to: 449 medical calls, 52 medical calls up from 2014.

Fire has responded to 220 emergency calls, 31 of these calls were for Mutual aid to other towns. Thank you to all who donated so generously, it's YOU who make this a possibility. We'd like to thank Victim's Inc. who made multiple donations, including a huge bin of stocking stuffers. A special thank you also goes out to Hammie's Closet in Shapleigh who has offered to help the department support families who experience losses due to house fires. They have even offered to deliver!

For information and pictures please visit the town website at http://www.lebanon-me.org/ and click on Emergency Services.

- Daniel Meehan
Fire and EMS Chief
Town of Lebanon, Maine
Fire and EMS Department

(O) - (207) 457-3922
(M) - (603) 591-5877
(E) - ChiefMeehan@LebanonFireEMS.org