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RED BIKE STORIES: How customers get sustainable results from medical technologies.

Profile: Code Blue Technology

Imagine you are in a crowd of 70,000 people in a downtown festival. The family member you are with suddenly begins choking and turning very pale, struggling to breathe because unknowing to them, they’ve just been exposed to their peanut allergy and are experiencing severe respiratory distress.  What do you do? 

Looking around all you see is a moving sea of strangers, all going about their business.  In a state of near panic, you ask yourself, “How can I get help quickly?”  You call out for help, reach for your cell phone and call 911… how to tell the dispatcher where you are? 

You wonder, “How in the world am I going to get my loved one quick medical attention in this huge crowd”?   In the middle of describing your location to the 911-emergency dispatcher, the crowd temporarily parts and someone on a bicycle stops next to you. You look up and there already pulling out oxygen and a medical pack is an EMT. The Paramedic with her is drawing up medications and reassuring your family member that they’ll begin to feel better in just a few minutes. 

Together, in the middle of that sea of 70,000 people, they work quickly to stabilize the patient and within five minutes, your loved one is able to breathe much easier and the feeling of panic is gone from your stomach.  In the meantime, two police officers on bike patrol have arranged crowd control and enabled the transporting ambulance to gain access to your location and minutes later you and your loved one are on the way to the hospital for follow up care.

This is just one of many scenarios EMS Bike Medics experience every day.  The mobility of an EMS provider on a bike can mean the difference between life and death in congested or crowded areas. EMS departments and other progressive agencies around the country are increasingly deploying Special Operations Bike Teams in tourist areas, during special events, in parks, college campuses, and airports during high volume times of the year.

This emerging and ever-faster developing trend has been witnessed first-hand by Code Blue Technology, an emergency medical education company based in Southwest Florida.  Owned and operated by Mike Grim and business partner Danielle Bobzien, CBT provides medical training for EMTs, Paramedics, RNs, ER Physicians and many others in the medical field.  Grim and Bobzien are also two of only fourteen IPMBA (International Police Mountain Bike Association) certified instructors in Florida that train pre-hospital emergency response personnel on bike riding skills, response tactics, and safety issues.  Not content to just train and educate, Grim and Bobzien are also active members of the Lee County EMS Bike Team. 

In a unique position of being EMS Bike Team members, IPMBA instructors, emergency medicine field instructors, and business professionals, Grim and Bobzien both note that EMS Bike Teams afford an excellent answer to the need for fast medical response in an ever-growing variety of locations.

“I think you’ll start to see more bike teams across the country, especially during these economic times when people realize it’s a less expensive way of putting medical response on the streets,” says Bobzien.

One of the additional benefits of an EMS Bike Team, according to Grim, is that they are indispensable in urban and wilderness search and rescue and mass casualty situations as well.

“It provides a faster level of response in some situations,” he says. “You can place two EMS personnel on a bike for half the cost of an ambulance unit on standby.  Here, in Lee County, our EMS Bike Team provides access to areas that you can’t get to such as remote areas on our trails. We have thousands of miles of trails and EMS bike teams can respond quickly and effectively in these areas.”

Another advantage of bike teams is the ability for interagency cooperation.  Police and other law enforcement agencies are very adept at utilizing bike teams for congested downtown area patrols and work well with EMS bike teams when situations arise.  Not restricted to just operating together while on duty, agency bike teams tend to support one another off duty and ride together for causes they believe in as seen during the recent Brotherhood Memorial Ride in Fort Myers, FL. 

Police officers, EMS, and firefighters came together to honor a fallen police officer by riding 413 miles, (the fallen officer’s badge number) over 6 days.  Riding the full 413 miles on a mountain bike outfitted with full ALS EMS gear, Grim notes that it was the support of his fellow EMS bike team members, the Brotherhood Riders, and the local law enforcement officers that really made him feel like it was a team effort. 

Grim and Bobzien encourage EMS agencies that do not have an EMS Bike Team, but desire one, to talk to their administration to allow a full-time bike medical team as part of their service to the community. They are also excited about what RED BIKE medical technologies is doing in their efforts to advocate for more EMS Bike Teams as well.

“We believe that we are at the forefront of this and with RED BIKE’s help, I think this will be a huge boost to bike teams across the United States,” says Grim. “To have an organization paying attention to the needs of EMS Bike Teams, like RED BIKE is doing, and collecting valuable data, is very critical to the success of adding more teams across the country. RED BIKE is an innovator in this process and I hope they continue.”

For more information on Code Blue Technology, visit http://www.codebluetech.com.

Las Vegas Paramedics Now Using Bikes to Provide Quick Medical Care

Sam Scheller, a Las Vegas paramedic, recently formed a EMS bike team with his partner, to respond to calls where ambulances can't go. According to this article, Sam carries 25 pounds of gear on his bike and says he's ready for just about anything. The paramedics travel in pairs and between the two of them they are equipped with ice packs, neck braces, an IV, and even a suction device to clear blocked airways.

"It is very difficult to get an ambulance through a large crowd. People don't get out of your way. Your big, your bulky," said Sam Scheller, pedaling paramedic. Part-time student and part-time paramedic,

Sam created a new bicycle response team as a way to provide quick medical care at crowded events. He says pedaling his way to patients helps him get to them as much as 10 minutes faster.

Sam says his bike team's goal is to stabilize a patient until a traditional ambulance arrives.

"The big difference between the ambulance and the bike is obviously the gurney and also the quantity of equipment that we carry. The ambulance is stocked to support 10 patients at a time, the bikes can only handle one patient at a time." Read more about Sam and his bike team.


THANKS to Dave Bloom for alerting us to this Chicago Sun Times story:

CONGRATULATIONS CHICAGO "Paramedics on Bicycles"

LIFE SAVERS | Tourist revived after going into cardiac arrest

FROM Chicago Sun Times
July 3, 2009
BY MONIFA THOMAS Staff Reporter

A 52-year-old woman who went into cardiac arrest on her way to the Taste of Chicago on Thursday was resuscitated, thanks to a quick-thinking passerby and a pair of paramedics on bicycles.

The unidentified woman, an Arizona tourist, was walking to the Taste when she collapsed near Balbo and Columbus around 10:30 a.m., Chicago Fire Department officials said. A good samaritan on her bicycle spotted the woman and began administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation.



Paramedic Michael Guerin used this defibrillator so save a woman's life Thursday. Ninety-five percent of people who go into sudden cardiac arrest die within minutes.
(Scott Stewart/Sun-Times)

Shortly after, fire department paramedics Michael Guerin and Elvis Falbo arrived on their bikes in response to a 911 call. The injured woman didn't have a pulse and was not breathing, but the paramedics were able to shock her heart back into a normal rhythm with an automated external defibrillator from one of their bikes.

"As soon as we shocked her, we got a pulse back," Guerin said. "I've been a paramedic for 15 years, and this is the first time I've defibrillated someone and had them wake up and start talking."

Guerin said the first words she spoke were, "Where am I?"

The woman was taken to a waiting ambulance by a medical cart and then to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where she is said to be in serious but stable condition, officials said.

The rescue might not have been possible if not for the paramedics' bicycle team, which can weave in and out of crowded spaces like the Taste with life-saving defibrillators and other medical supplies in tow, said Marc Levison, assistant deputy fire commissioner of EMS operations.

"You can't beat them. They're just invaluable," he said of the team, which is also used to patrol busy downtown areas.

Ninety-five percent of people who go into sudden cardiac arrest die within minutes. The odds of surviving are much better if someone can get blood flowing to the heart by quickly performing CPR and using a defibrillator to restore a normal heart rhythm, as was the case Thursday.

Levison said the Fire Department's response time at the Taste is less than two minutes, in part because of the three, two-man bike teams on site.

On average, paramedics respond to 15 to 25 medical emergencies a day at the food fest, he said.

Guerin and Falbo thanked the samaritan, who appeared to have some form of medical training.

"Nothing can be more rewarding than saving somebody's life," said Falbo, a paramedic for 11 years. "I'm just glad we were there."

TELL US YOUR EMS BIKE TEAM STORY

RED BIKE is devoted to promoting the effectiveness of medical technologies - especially those used by EMS Bike Teams. Let us know what is working for you.

In an ever-more resource constrained economy - Evidence-Based EMS Bike Teams will be sustainable, worthy of increased funding and support and able to grow in sophistication and scope.

CONTACT richobertots@redbike-med.com 412.670.9906 so that we can promote your EMS BIKE TEAM and your effectiveness.

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