The Columbian | Serving Clark County, Washington

As of Monday, at least 27,000 people in central Vancouver may have to wait minutes longer for emergency medical help to reach them.

That’s how many people reside within the service boundaries of the Vancouver Fire Department’s last remaining medical rescue unit, according to Vancouver Firefighters Union president Mark Johnston.

Johnston led a rally Saturday to protest a city budget cut aimed at permanently parking the medical rescue unit housed at Vancouver Fire Department Station 3, on Devine Road.

Cutting “Rescue 3,” as it’s called, means routing medical emergency calls to the other fire engines still in service at the station and to nearby partner stations when necessary — all of which could double the standard five-minute response time to more like 10 minutes, Johnston said.

It’s all because of a $6 million city of Vancouver budget deficit that has officials trimming personnel and programs in many areas. But this cut is different, Johnston said — it’s a matter of life and death — and he wants residents to flood City Hall with calls of protest.

“It’s our contention that such a serious reduction in the level of service we’re providing to people is a policy prerogative that ought to come from the city council,” he said.

And what should get cut instead of emergency medical response?

“I don’t have specifics,” Johnston said. But, he added, “Nobody ever died from not getting the grass mowed.”

The Vancouver Firefighters Union has 185 members, he said; about a third showed up Saturday morning at Station 3, on the corner of Devine and Mill Plain Road, to wave signs and earn honks from traffic before fanning out into the surrounding neighborhood with fliers and petitions.

“The public is not even aware of this yet,” said emergency medical technician Matt Thierfelder, who’s worked for the Vancouver Fire Department for 16 years. “We have to educate people about what we do. People don’t know where we come from — they just want know that (if) they call 911, we’ll come right away.”

Thierfelder said he lives right down the street from Station 3 with his wife and one son.

“If my wife had a medical emergency right now, this is the station the call would come to,” he said.

Spillover effect

While firefighters were spreading the word about this budget cut where it’ll be felt most directly — among those 27,000 residents of the Heights neighborhoods of central Vancouver — others warned that the loss of Rescue 3 will be felt all over Clark County, as the time lag ripples across cooperating agencies.

“There’s a huge spillover effect,” said Bill Dunlap of Fire District 6, which serves Hazel Dell, Felida, Salmon Creek and the Fairgrounds neighborhoods.

Dunlap pointed out that Rescue 3 has fielded as many as 4,500 medical rescue calls per year — a very high volume that would typically call for another unit to be added.

“It handles as many calls as two of our units put together,” he said. “If these guys get pulled out, we get pulled into helping down here.” That may mean drawing rescue and firefighting units from farther north in Clark County into helping Fire District 6, he added. All of which may mean spreading personnel and equipment a little too thin all over the county, he said.

“If they start pulling out people, it’s not as safe,” he said. “Safety is the No. 1 thing in my book.”

“This directly affects us,” agreed Casey Collins, a Fire District 6 commissioner. “It should not be on the chopping block.”

Collins added that his 95-year-old mother lives near Station 3.

“She hasn’t needed its services yet but I bet she will sometime in the next five years,” he said.

Johnston said the cut of Rescue 3 will go into effect Monday — much sooner than he’d first understood, he said — and that the city council will be making some final budget decisions at a meeting March 1.

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