PEORIA, Ill. – Budget woes that have befallen the City of Peoria — and, more specifically, its fire department in recent years have not stopped one initiative that’s been growing in the last several decades.
The Fire Department is one fire station away from all fifteen having at least one paramedic on staff available to respond to emergency calls around the clock — making them capable of what’s called Advanced Life Support.
The latest is Station 15 near Knoxville and Detweiller, and despite initial concerns raised by Fifth District Councilmember Dennis Cyr.
“I found out four and a half years ago how expensive it is. We all want the best services, but sometimes you need the money, and you need the training. Finally, our Chief (Jim Bachman) started the process with the money, getting the grand. (Current) Chief (Shawn) Sollberger finished the process.”
Fire Station 15 — near Knoxville and Detweiller in North Peoria — was the latest to have ALS available as of Sunday.
“When you’re getting into this level of service, there’s certain things you have to do,” said Sollberger, at a news conference Monday. “Cutting back on ALS, and cutting back on paramedics, probably at this particular point, is not an option. It’s how we continue to train and educate our firefighters is of the utmost importance to our department.”
The fifteen fire stations in the city now have that capability to do some of the heavy lifting of emergency calls until Advanced Medical Transport can arrive on scene — something AMT CEO and Peoria County Board Chair Andrew Rand doesn’t mind at all.
“Our assets move from street corner to street corner, and the fire-based operations are fixed,” said Rand. “While they have an extraordinary level of distribution for fire service, the medical level of distribution for us was not equal to their fire-based distribution.”
Sollberger says he’s working on getting the last fire station its own paramedic, so it can also be able to have ALS services.
