By Rohan Anne, Ryan Ding and Shrija Krishnan, Webmaster, Staff Reporter and Business Manager
On Feb. 3, a new Paoli Fire Company Emergency Medical Services substation opened at the Echo Lake Senior Living Community in Malvern. To speed up response times for residents and neighboring communities, the Paoli Fire Company and senior living community collaborated to build the smaller facility with equipment and personnel.
Timothy Wert, the Paoli Fire Company Advanced Life Support coordinator, acted as the liaison between the Emergency Medical Services division and the Malvern county government communication center. He set up radio identifiers, completed paperwork and met with the center’s department heads to work on the station.
“Our biggest concern was our response times, whether it was Echo Lake or the residents in that general area,” Wert said. “Through conversations with them and just a great partnership that we had already established, we made a mutual decision to work together.”
During a conversation between the fire company and Echo Lake discussing ways they could help each other, members decided to pursue the substation project. To prepare the facility, the senior living community provided the office space, parking spots and outlets for operating equipment, while the fire company staffed it with personnel. The process took around seven to eight weeks.
“It was really a mutual conversation that we started talking about and finding ways that we could better collaborate and figuring out what we could do to overall help each other out,” Wert said. “We communicated with the municipalities, (made) them aware of what we were doing, then met with department figures at the county level to orchestrate the county dispatch system.”
Prior to the new substation, long-term construction on the nearby Morehall Road increased the fire company’s response times to Echo Lake from its main location on Darby Road. Approximately 11-and-a-half minutes, the fire company aimed for a new response time of around eight minutes with the Echo Lake substation.
In the future, the Paoli Fire Company may consider adding a transport unit to the substation once it carefully evaluates response times and distances.
“Time is life, whether it’s a heart attack or a stroke. Time is brain, time is heart,” Wert said. “It’s being closer to the community, the aspect of getting there sooner, providing care sooner, and really trying to make a difference in treatment and care for the residents who need it.”
