Closed Stations Delay Response to Massachusetts Medical Crises

David Soucy lived only about three minutes from the Magnolia fire station. But on July 8, when he suffered an apparent diabetic reaction, Magnolia was closed, forcing responders to drive 11 minutes from the downtown fire headquarters, records show.

Paramedics found Soucy, a 48-year-old carpenter and the father of two young sons, in cardiac arrest on his front steps. They were able to restart his heart and race him to a hospital, but he was taken off life support the next day when tests showed he was brain-dead, his family said. Soucy's older son, Colin, turned 7 the day after his father died.

The 11-minute response to Soucy haunts not only his family, but also Gloucester's EMS coordinator, Sander Schultz, who was a member of the first paramedic team to arrive.

"It's horrible," Schultz said, "knowing that a few minutes earlier I might have made a difference."

Had the Magnolia station been open, EMTs might have been able to make it to Soucy well within the time necessary to prevent brain damage, Schultz said. Firefighters and paramedics say they have about six minutes to reach someone whose heart has stopped before lack of oxygen triggers brain damage.

"That patient would have stood a much higher chance of survival," he said.

A recent string of house fires in Gloucester's Magnolia neighborhood, on the city's southeastern side, has reignited long-simmering concerns about public safety, as fire and ambulance crews are forced to travel greater distances to reach areas where fire stations have been closed. Budget cuts have shuttered two of Gloucester's four stations Magnolia near the Manchester border and Bay View near the Rockport border much of the time since 2004.

While most of the public debate about Gloucester's closed fire stations has focused on fires, records show that Gloucester residents are much more likely to depend on the Fire Department for medical emergencies such as heart attacks, injuries from car accidents, and allergic reactions. Last year, 59.6 percent of all calls to the Fire Department were for medical help or rescues, such as extricating someone from a car. The majority of the medical/rescue calls 69 percent were for medical assistance, records show.

As is the case in many communities, most of Gloucester's firefighters are trained to administer basic life support, including CPR and defibrillation. More than 90 percent of Gloucester's firefighters are certified emergency medical technicians, Schultz said.

That medical training can be critical with an aging population that has more acute health needs, and with increasing reports of food allergies, particularly among children. Firefighters say they were lucky the outcome was a good one last Aug. 23, when the Magnolia station was closed and a 911 call came in for a 5-year-old boy on Hesperus Circle in Magnolia with an allergic reaction to peanuts.

An ambulance and a fire engine pump truck were dispatched from downtown headquarters. It took them 10 minutes to get there, Schultz said. The boy was taken to the hospital, but he was OK, Schultz said.

Paramedics worry about peanut allergies because that type of allergic reaction tends to produce swelling that blocks a person's airway, Schultz said. Peanuts and peanut residue from the food packaging process can show up in foods in which consumers, especially children, may not expect them, he said. That's why Gloucester paramedics and firefighters say they are uneasy that the Bay View fire station, the one closest to the Plum Cove elementary school, continues to be closed much of the time.

"You get an allergic reaction up there, it's a 13-minute response time from downtown," said firefighter and union president Clinton Carroll.

Recently, residents in the Bay View and Magnolia neighborhoods have circulated petitions asking the City Council to provide funding to reopen the stations. However, voters rejected a tax increase in 2004 that, according to city leaders, would have been used in part to reopen them.