Four Englewood firefighters are finishing their paramedic, advanced life support training, and another four are ready to start.
The Englewood Area Fire District’s goal is to be able to man and equip four of the district’s six engines for advanced life support. The idea is so firefighters will be able to provide emergency medical services, Fire Chief Kevin Easton said at Wednesday’s fire board meeting.
Engine 71, stationed at Station 71 on South Indiana Avenue in Olde Englewood Village, will be the truck to be equipped as an ALS responding unit.
Firefighters do have emergency medical training, qualifying them as EMT responders. But the advanced life support training allows them to address cardiac arrest and other serious ailments more fully. The district already has two firefighters who are paramedics.
“We have some discussions with Sarasota County where we put our paramedics with (county paramedics on an ambulances),” Easton told the district’s fire commissioners Wednesday.