The Medical Response Unit helps to eliminate the increase in medical calls

The Calgary Fire Department (CFD) announced today that a second medical response unit will be operational to help manage the increase in emergency medical calls.

CFD responds to life-threatening medical emergencies such as respiratory arrest, cardiac arrest, and overdose.

These are specialized, smaller vehicles that only respond to medical calls, freeing up our engines and other heavy equipment to respond to other emergencies at our highest volume stations.

These departments were reorganized with funding from the Council in the 2023-2026 budget. The First Medical Response Unit was brought back from Station 1 (downtown) in 2023 and responded to nearly 6,000 calls in its first year, making it the busiest unit in the CFD fleet. This second medical response unit operates from Station 2 (Beltline).

In 2023, CFD responded to 52,000 medical calls, an 18% increase over 2022 and representing more than 55% of CFD's 2023 annual call volume. Medical calls are more common than all other types of calls combined.

“Fire trucks are designed to extinguish fires. Instead, bringing in a light vehicle with medically trained personnel and equipment will help us quickly get the resources we need to the types of calls we need,” said Chief Steve Dongworth. “By having a dedicated medical response unit at our busiest stations, we ensure we can still meet the response times.”

Each unit consists of two firefighters. Vehicles are not intended to transport patients. Firefighters stay with the patient until Alberta Health Services EMS arrives and often support patients with care and transport during the call.

Fast facts:

• Each year, CFD responds to more than 70,000 fire and fire-related incidents, critical medical interventions, motor vehicle collisions, dangerous situations, specialized technical rescues, including water rescues and public service calls.
• CFD has 43 fire stations and 1,415 firefighters providing life-saving emergency services to Calgarians and visitors across 848 square kilometres.
• These medical response units are expected to respond to approximately 10,000 calls in 2024.
• The number of responses to opioid calls in 2023 was 45% higher than in 2022 (4,765 vs. 6,889).

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