AHN community response unit has new vehicle, equipment
CRANBERRY TWP — Since its inception in the southwestern Butler County region in October 2021, the Allegheny Health Network Wexford Community Response Unit has been busy.
The unit, which consists of an SUV-size vehicle driven by paramedics that can assist area EMS providers at crisis scenes, has spent the last half-year helping out at accidents and medical emergencies across Cranberry Township, Adams Township, Mars, Seven Fields, Middlesex Township and Valencia.
In June the unit received a new Ford Expedition special service vehicle, along with equipment upgrades and a new cardiac monitor/defibrillator, Lucas automated CPR device, suction unit, and additional medications. The Community Response team will be able to use its new equipment on emergency calls. The old vehicle will be kept as a spare.
The unit has responded to 636 calls so far this year, said Megan Lenz, supervisor of AHN prehospital response.
“Our job, and our mission, is to partner with local EMS services and be a community resource for them,” Lenz said. “We’re able to provide an extra paramedic for those calls (where) you might need two advanced life-support providers. Maybe someone is drowning, maybe childbirth, something along those lines, where you need an extra pair of hands. We can provide that second paramedic.”
Community response unit paramedics and EMTs can start patient care at a scene, bring equipment that another EMS service might not have, or ride along in the vehicle of another EMS service to help take care of a patient, she said.
“We run calls with Cranberry, and with Quality EMS, which runs calls in Adams Township, Middlesex and Mars, and we’ve run a couple of calls with Harmony,” Lenz said. “We will go anywhere that we are requested.”
Nico Soler, prehospital business development specialist for AHN, said the new truck was delayed due to supply chain shortages facing many EMS providers.
“It’s been so hard to get new vehicles, but we finally were able to get it in and get it outfitted,” he said.
The program has proven to be very successful in the area, Soler said, and works with the various first responders, police departments and fire departments in southern Butler County.
“We will help transport to any hospital — it doesn’t have to be an AHN hospital,” he explained. “We are part of the EMS licensure, and that means we go where the patient needs to go or wants to go.”
While the home base of the Community Response unit is right over the county line in Allegheny County, Soler said the unit frequently helps patients in Butler County.
“Megan is from Butler, I’m from Butler and the coordinator at the hospital also lives in Butler,” Soler said. “We’re proud of what we do, and it’s an extra proud moment when we can bring that to our hometown. We put a lot of our time and a lot of our tears into this program, and if we can bring that home, it helps; it’s nice.”
“Butler County has less staffing than Allegheny County. Per capita, the call volume is less,” Lenz added. “That’s where we tend to come in and help and assist. I think for us, too, it is close to home, and it’s important to us to be out here helping where we live.”
