Siuslaw Valley Fire and Rescue, along with our partners Western Lane Ambulance are taking COVID-19 seriously. Please advise on any initial calls for assistance, your symptoms, if they could possibly be flu like. We have a limited number of First Responders and medically trained personnel. We know you want, and we want to protect our personnel from exposure.
Please do not be alarmed or offended by our necessary modified response. Will now be wearing extra Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) on many medical calls. Additionally, we will only be sending one EMS personnel into your home, while any others wait outside to minimize exposure and maximize the limited PPE we have. Having a crew wait outside, allows us to retrieve any additional PPE if needed and still respond to your needs quickly. We will also be conducting “door triage” at the recommendation of Oregon Health Authority and Lane County Public Health – asking a few questions from the doorway about symptoms of COVID-19 in the home. We are doing this, again, for the safety of our responders and to be good stewards of the limited PPE we have.
It is our goal to continue serving our community to the very best of our ability but at the same time protecting our First Responders. Please be patient as it takes us longer to don this PPE compared to just pulling on gloves. Please, please, please take care of yourselves and each other, so our volunteers can safely take care of our community.
