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New EMS building puts services under one roof

After two years of construction, the Park's new $2.8 million emergency service building on Center Road is now housing all of the South Rim emergency services under one roof.

According to Chief of Emergency Services Ken Phillips, prior to last month, the agencies ­ structural fire, search and rescue and emergency medical services ­ were scattered throughout the park in available spaces that didn't meet OSHA standards or provide optimum storage for equipment.

"This increases our space by at least 50 percent," he said. "It's very central. We can get to Tusayan, Mather Point or the historic part of the village really quick."

On-call EMS workers can also easily reach the building, which is central to the park's residential neighborhoods. Workers do not pull shifts in the building, Phillips said. Rather they work at other jobs and have EMS responsibilities as collateral duty.

The column-less bay houses two rescue vehicles, two ambulances, two NPS fire trucks and one truck belonging to Xanterra. Instead of having hoses attached to vehicle exhaust pipes, the room is ventilated with a state of the art filtering system.

The building, which measures more than 12,000 square feet, also includes a workshop to clean and decontaminate turnout gear, showers for men and women, search and rescue and EMS caches, a compressor room to refill air tanks and a break room and kitchen.

In addition to some punchlist items to finish this phase, the contractor will also install a blinking traffic signal on Center Road to halt traffic when vehicles make emergency departures. That should go up within the next couple of weeks, Phillips said.

In the second phase, offices in the back of the clinic and space inside the Science Center will be converted to office space and an emergency operations center. In the meantime, these functions are housed in a trailer adjacent to the main building.

Previously, incident command was carried out in the former ranger operations offices at Park Headquarters, Phillips said.

The consolidation of services under one roof not only enhances response time, it also provides a climate-controlled environment for equipment and personnel.

The search and rescue cache was at the historic warehouse and apparatus was stored at the old maintenance yard. Protective clothing was stored in the same space as the apparatus, exposed to the degrading effect of diesel fumes.

Also EMS storage in the maintenance yard was not climate controlled, resulting in loss of supplies. Storage at the old fire station also shortened the life of training supplies and CPR equipment, Phillips said.

"Our rescue vehicle spent a couple of winters out in a tent," Phillips said. "This provides a huge upside in taking care of equipment."

The project was funded from fee demo money. Scoping for the project started in May of 2001, with construction commencing in early 2003. It was expected to be finished last fall but according to park Public Affairs Officer Maureen Oltrogge, the unusually wet weather delayed completion.

"The rain started in October and then it turned to snow," she said. "We agreed to let them resume work on April 1 to finish the things that they couldn't do in the cold."

While other sites were considered, including at the new maintenance building, the current location was chosen for its proximity to the clinic and its central location and easy accessibility to points throughout the park and for EMS workers responding to alarms.

"This allows us immediate access to congested points of the Village, but we are still out of sight," Phillips said.

He said that they have already been summoned to the clinic for an emergency call and have negotiated some complex incidents, including an overnight stay by the First Lady.

"We had no central incident command post," he said. "Today we have space to coordinate a big, protracted incident."


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