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Woman In Full Cardiac Arrest In Downtown High Rise Brought Back To Life By LBFD Engine 1 Firefighters, Dispatched At Or Near Period When LBFD Had No Immediately Available Med Rescue Units



(March 24, 2012) -- LBReport.com has learned that at or near the time the Long Beach Fire Department was short on available rescue units to respond to a large number of medical calls, LBFD received a call reporting that a woman in her 60s was suffering from a seizure in a downtown LB high rise.

Dispatchers sent the nearest available unit -- LBFD Engine 1 around the corner at Station 1 on Magnolia Ave. just north of Ocean Blvd. -- to an office building on Ocean Blvd. just west of Magnolia Ave. at about 2:25 p.m.

Engine 1's Firefighters arrived very quickly and found office staff performing CPR on the woman...who was in full cardiac arrest. (If Engine 1 had been handling another call and unavailable to respond, another unit would have had to respond from further away.)

Engine 1's crew came equipped with an automated external defibrilator (which can be operated by an Engine crew's trained EMTs). Firefighters attached the device to the woman...and moments later, they saw a heart rhythm.

Rescue 2 arrived thereafter. Its personnel took over and transported the woman -- lifeless minutes earlier, conscious now -- to a hospital.

As LBReport.com previously reported, during a roughly ninety minute period which began in the 1 o' clock hour March 21, LBFD had 25 dispatches (incidents called in) of which 15 were medical calls. At one point, LBFD utilized "auto-aid" agreements it has with L.A. County and area east cities such as Downey and had them come in to cover and also used a private ambulance company.

LBFD was fully staffed that day -- to the extent budgeted by the LB City Council -- but that budgeted staffing isn't what City Hall delivered as recently as a few years ago.

As a result of actions approved by a Council majority (supporting budgets proposed by Mayor Bob Foster and City Manager Pat West), City Hall balanced its spending budgets by what the Mayor calls "proportional reductions," a mathematical formula applied to public safety in the same manner as other City Hall spending. The impacts on LBFD service:

  • Engine 18 [Stn. 18 on Palo Verde Ave. south of Wardlow Rd.] is gone, replaced by a medical rescue unit.

  • Engine 101 [Stn. 1 Magnolia Ave. b/w Ocean Blvd.-Broadway] is gone. [If a fire had occurred in its immediate area, an Engine from elsewhere would have been called to respond while Engine 1 was responding to the woman in cardiac arrest in the absence of nearer available medical rescue units.]

  • Engine 14 [Stn. 14 , 5200 Elliot Ave.] used to have an Engine and a Truck (four person crews) which was then cut by to a "light force" (6 firefighters) but has now been cut further to a rescue unit.

  • Rescue 12 [Stn 12, 6509 Gundry Ave.] is gone.

    A day before the Mar. 21 medical emergencies, Councilmembers Gerrie Schipske, Rae Gabelich, and Steve Neal agendized a City Council agenda item requesting details from city management on LBFD responses in the wake of the budget reductions made by a Council majority last year. (City management/LBFD's report is now coming.)

    In August 2011, Councilmembers Schipske, Gabelich and Neal proposed using a portion of $18 million in accrued oil revenue to avert some of the Mayor/Management proposed cuts to LBFD and LBPD. Mayor Foster opposed this and a Council majority voted it down (3-6) in September. In October, the same Council majority on a reversed vote (6-3, Garcia, Lowenthal, DeLong, O'Donnell, Andrews, Johnson voting yes) approved spending the accrued oil revenue on a variety of other items ranging from tree trimming to a City Hall website upgrade.



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