Their bikes are fire-engine red: Providence's firefighters on bike patrol save lives

PROVIDENCE − The city's police officers aren't the only ones patrolling local streets on bicycles this spring.

The firefighters are out there, too, rolling through their second season of bike patrol.

Both groups wear blue uniforms. But the color of the firefighters' apparatus is distinguishable. They wear red helmets and have red saddlebags. And the paint schemes on their bicycles sport lots of fire-engine red.

After a debut run last year, the Fire Department has expanded the bicycle patrol this year. The patrols are improving response times in two distinct areas of the city that tend to generate lots of calls, said Fire Chief Derek Silva.

Why are firefighters on bike patrol in Providence?

The patrols are also helping to conserve the city's emergency-medical resources.

"It's worked out well," Silva said. "We're trying to find a level of service that doesn't overtax our rescue EMS services."

The patrols proved their worth last year in two districts: An area downtown that includes Kennedy Plaza as well as another area that encompasses parts of Broad Street just north and west of Interstate 95. Both locales tend to generate a lot of fire rescue calls.

Also, it's not uncommon for the fire rescue units to learn that the patient may not want or need transport to the Emergency Department at Rhode Island Hospital.

Here's how bike patrols help save EMS services

A major part of the rationale for the bicycling firefighter EMTs is that their nimbleness and proximity get them to the scene faster. Often first on the scene, the firefighters start administering life-saving emergency medical aid as the ambulance arrives to take the patient to the hospital.

If transport is not necessary, or not as urgent, the bike patrol handles that, too, and returns to patrol.

Over the years, both areas have generated a lot of "man down" 911 calls. Sometimes it's someone sleeping or passed out. Other times, it's far more serious, an opioid overdose, for example.

"You never really know what the problem is, so you have to send someone," said, fire Deputy Assistant Chief Zachariah R. Kenyon, who heads up the department's EMS section.

How did the program perform last year?

Last year, while operating in August and September, the bicycle units were on the front end of 58 emergency trips to the hospital, Silva said.

They also distributed 500 Narcan kits last year. The kits make it possible to administer the life-saving opioid overdose reversal drug.

This year they have already launched 38 transports.

The two bicycling firefighters carry a wide range of advanced medical equipment. They can deal with heart attacks and other types of life-threatening cardiac events. They can start IVs and supply oxygen.

Kenyon said the bicycling emergency medical personnel are on the scene 60 to 90 seconds faster than their colleagues on the fire rescue transports. That can make a difference.

"Seconds count in a cardiac," Kenyon said.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Providence firefighters are riding to emergencies on bicycles