Welcome to Rural EMS IS Different

Historical information from BIEMS beginnings

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Early  History of
Beaver Island EMS

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Rural EMS IS Different


About us : Retired paramedic instructor, fireman, and law enforcement

There is no doubt in the mind of this retired paramedic instructor, who functioned in EMS for 36 years right here on Beaver Island, that doing EMS on an isolated rural island is definitely different that doing EMS in a town on the mainland, whether Charlevoix, Petoskey, Traverse City, or Grand Rapids, just to name a few towns in the northern Michigan. How is EMS different in a rural isolated island in the middle of Lake Michigan? Well, the 32 miles of water between the island and the mainland should immediately provide an answer to this question, but most times the 2.5 hour ferry ride is obviously a difference that most mainland ambulance services don’t have to deal with. The off-Island air transport services always take at least 45 minutes and sometimes as much as two hours to arrive to take the patient to the mainland, so the on-island FAA certified air ambulance will certainly help get the patient where (s)he needs to be in a much quicker and much more efficient period of time of approximately twenty minutes to Charlevoix or Harbor Springs, and twice as long if the patient needs to get to Traverse City. So, beyond the normal ground transport times with gravel roads on most of Beaver Island, there is also the air transport situation necessary when the patient needs to get to a hospital. If would seem that even in the worst situation with bad weather with no planes flying, the BI EMS has had many other options in transporting a patient during these unusual situations. The order of the air transport is usually using the local air ambulance as the first choice, using an off island air transport service when the local air transport is not available, and, for the last resort for air transport, there is a USCG helicopter out of Traverse City than is willing to come in some less than wonderful weather, but still safely arrive and transport the medical patient to the location allowed by weather. Even the weather on the island is not the only issue. Once the destination was decided to be Charlevoix, the weather did not allow transport south to Traverse City or north to Harbor Springs, but the patient eventually was taken to St. Ignace due to the fact that it was the only location that had weather clear enough to land the aircraft. Every single patient is normally accompanied by an EMT and a paramedic from Beaver Island, no matter the transport method, with the exception of the off-Island air transport aircraft that has a crew of usually two paramedics. It may be more convenient for the island EMS providers to use the off-Island air transport aircraft, but it is seldom the best method of transport in emergency conditions due to the more than an hour arrival time, which means the Platinum fifteen minutes and the Golden Hour is past before the patient is turned over to the off=Island paramedics. So, every single emergency patient assessed and treated on Beaver Island. Is going to get a bill from three services necessary to get them to the mainland hospital that they need to arrive as soon as possible. There is BI EMS, an air transport EMS, and a mainland EMS that does the final ground transport to the hospital. There is another difference that may be overlooked by many. When you live in a rural community, such as this isolated island in Lake Michigan, every single patient that you encounter is your neighbor, someone that you have socialized with and gone to church with, as well as had contact with their whole family at some point. That makes every single patient a friend of yours, and this is certainly not true in a bigger town or city EMS, where most patients, except repeats, are mostly strangers to you.