Amherst Fire Department North Station located a beer can throw from UMass
Good thing the town situated North Station on the UMass border, as once again our emergency medical responders were overrun with ETOH (passed out drunk) calls that take up at least an hour of valuable ambulance time transporting them one at a time to the Cooley Dickinson Hospital.UMass needs to rethink the significant reduction of their Health Services hours on weekends, as our fire department can't keep up with demand now. Once again we had the dangerous situation where all full-time professional members of AFD were tied up with ambulance calls and the entire town was dependent on the Student Call Force for fire protection (no offense intended to those dedicated volunteers, but that is simply unacceptable)
AFD weekend runs 1st weekend December (note number of ETOH calls)
9 comments:
Wow!!! What an incredible number of ETOH calls! I had no clue! I hope you'll post thi list every week on your blog, Larry!
Do they actually transport thme one at a time to Cooley Dick? There has to be a better way. Maybe have an ETOH treatment center on this side of the river on weekends? Get a bus and transport them all at once??? - yes, sarcastic font warranted here.
But seriously, it seems like the Amherst EMT do nothing but take care of UMASS ( and a few Amherst College) students all weekend. And UHS is closing its doors on the weekend??? Perhaps they should stay open and make that the ETOH treatment center.
This isn't an excuse or a justification, but simply an observation. Almost all of those ETOH calls came from Freshman dorms on campus. The on-campus kids that just moved away from home for the first time are a lot bigger drain on resources than the off campus house parties that seem to garner more attention on this website.
Anonymous 4:30 pm:
Thanks for the distinction that doesn't make any difference to those of us paying taxes in Amherst.
All of you are too big a drain on town resources, that are not being paid for by the vast majority of your parents. Now if these costs were being borne state-wide.....I think that there might be more concern and maybe even more action from university administrators about them.
The data on calls presented here puts it all in black and white for us: a real public service by this blog. Thanks, Larry.
Your welcome.
Thanks should also go to AFD, APD and Dispatch for putting up with this garbage in a most professional manner.
@Anonymous 4:30 pm
There is no such thing as "freshman dorms" at UMass Amherst. It is true that most of the students living on campus are freshman and sophomores but there are no designated dorms just for freshman. In addition, weekend drinking activities in dorms often involves UMass students dropping in from off-campus and non-students
It is true that the drunk kids in dorms at both Amherst College and UMass take up a lot of resources, it's also true that an out-of-control party in a residential neighborhood causes a lot of disturbance for the public.
You say you're not making an excuse but remarking that they are "kids who just moved away from home for the first time" is an excuse. As community members and members of the larger society, we all have a responsibility to send correct messages about drinking to our fellow citizens, including young people.
The Town of Amherst can start with not approving every request for a new bar that comes in front of them.
As for UHS closing on weekend nights, AFD has always transported passed out drunk UMass college students directly to Cooley-Dick even when UHS is open.
My problem with UHS closing on weekends early is that now some routine cases (other than passed out drunk) that are not really all that threatening will end up getting transport to CDH and then when an ambulance is needed for a more serious case (like passed out drunk or auto accident) all available ambulances will be tied up.
Sometimes just talking to a professional in a white coat can have a soothing effect. And if they tell you to "take two aspirin and call me in the morning", that might solve the situation.
Amherst College is not immune from taxing the resources of the AFD. The College is less than 10% of the size of UMASS yet the total call volume to the College was 40% of UMASS's total.
Lets buy more ambulances.
We charge and make money with them, right?
But the ambulances don't run themselves. We would need more staff.
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