FIRE DEPARTMENT ADDS MEDICAL MONITORS

Since Cape Girardeau firefighters assumed the added responsibility of responding to medical calls in late May, they have relied heavily upon donations to purchase of state of the art medical equipment to use in the field.

This week, the department received two combination pulse and blood oxygen monitors, purchased with funds raised by public education programming and CPR and first aid classes.

The monitors, called portable pulse oximeters, are about the size of a walkie-talkie and cost the department $950 each.

"We had been trying out demo models from different companies for several weeks," said Lt. Brad Golden, chief medical officer of the fire department. "We liked this model best. It is specifically designed for use in the field."

The monitor is hooked up to a patient via a duckbill-type clip can be slipped over the finger or toe of any adult. A light is then shone through the flesh and registered on the other side, to give firefighters or other emergency medical personnel an immediate reading of the person's blood-oxygen saturation and pulse. The patient experiences no pain or discomfort from the monitor.

"We still have our emergency medical personnel take a person's pulse of people manually," said Golden, a paramedic and registered nurse with the department. "The real purpose of the monitor is to tell us how much oxygen a person is getting into their system."

For instance, if firefighters respond to a scene where a person has sustained a crush injury to an arm or leg, medics can determine to an extent the internal damage caused by the shattered bone. If a person is getting a good blood-oxygen reading to one finger and not to another, it gives emergency medical personnel an idea of which arteries may be damaged, Golden said.

That information can then be relayed to the ambulance crew responding to the scene.

The monitor is also useful in heart attack and asthma situations.

Bill Crump, a paramedic with the fire department, said he recently dealt with an asthma patient, where the monitor would have been very useful.

"With an asthma patient, a lot of the time you have no idea what's going on," he said. "If you give them a lot of oxygen, they could die; sometimes without oxygen, you could have the same result.

"The monitors take the guessing out of it," he said. "We can know immediately what kind of oxygen saturation the person is getting to their extremities."

The monitors will be included with the medical equipment on Engine 1 and Engine 2. All of the department's emergency medical technicians and paramedics will be trained with the new equipment.

"We don't have the money in the (emergency medical services) budget for monitors at all four stations," said Golden. "After we buy medical supplies each year, there isn't much money left over."