In synch: working with EMS can enhance your rescue services. (Risk Management).(emergency medical services )(Brief Article)

For aquatics facilities to effectively integrate rescue and safety services with those of the local fire and rescue agencies and emergency medical services (EMS), it's imperative that all agencies establish collaborative agreements and cooperative training programs.

Before local safety and rescue agencies can appropriately respond to an incident at an aquatics facility, the agencies must know exactly how to enter and progress through the facility. During hazardous-material or fire-suppression incidents, responding personnel must be familiar with the life-safety issues specific to that facility. Apparatus and personnel must be appropriately staged, and responding personnel must be knowledgeable about the types and locations of chemicals -- liquid chlorine, chlorine gas, muriatic acid and the like -- stored within the facility.

Aquatics facilities should contact their local EMS agencies to request assistance in the evaluation of rescue equipment and to provide guidance in the purchase of appropriate spinal immobilization and emergency resuscitation equipment.

Spinal injuries

Because spinal injuries almost always require transport to hospitals, spinal-injury equipment and protocols require close coordination with EMS agencies. Backboards used at aquatics facilities must be compatible with ambulance cots. If a backboard doesn't fit on a standard ambulance cot, it won't fit on a medical helicopter.

Backboards should be a maximum of 16 to 18 inches wide and 72 inches long, preferably with a narrowing taper from the top of the board down to the foot section. Many plastic backboards have more flex than diving boards; facilities should not use these substandard backboards for a patient with an already compromised spine.

When EMS units transport a suspected spinal patient on a facility's backboard, the EMS unit should be able to leave a complete spinal-immobilization system with the facility until the facility can recover its equipment from either the hospital or the EMS agency.