Cascade County Disaster Emergency Services, DES, hosted a drill exercise on Saturday in Cascade to train the new recruits for the Cascade County Quick Response Unit (QRU).
Justin Secrist, QRU member for Cascade County, said it’s important to have quick responders in areas where it may take longer for EMS and Fire to show up.
“[We go] to any medical, any injuries [or] car crashes before the ambulance gets there. We're kind of like the front line for rural EMS,” said Secrist.
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Areas such as Cascade, Dearborn and other rural areas don’t typically have a large medical response team presence. Cascade County DES, as well as fire departments in the area, are working to be equipped to better serve these communities.
“The fire department for Cascade is practicing cutting open a car, and then the EMS class is practicing pulling the patient out of a vehicle that was in the car crash,” Secrist explained.
Cascade County DES holds trainings like these as practice and educational opportunities for individuals in the medical response field, and also to ensure a quicker response for those in the community who need assistance.
“If you call 911, you’re going to wait at least 45 minutes before an ambulance gets there. Now, with a QRU out here, you call 911 in Cascade, it's going to be maybe five minutes and you're going to get a medically trained person,” Secrist said. “In Dearborn, if you call 911, it could be up to an hour and a half before you get any type of medical response, so having medical responders, trained medical responders, in Dearborn will shave that by ten or fifteen minutes, you'll get a responder.”
There will be another training coming up later this month beginning on April 22nd. Visit the Cascade County DES Facebook page for more information.
