Miami-Dade Motorcycles Do It Faster

No matter how loud your siren, when the freeway is a parking lot, you’re not getting through, and if someone at the accident up ahead needs medical attention, they’re out of luck. That’s why Lt. Roman Bas, a firefighter/paramedic with Florida’s Miami-Dade Fire-Rescue (MDFR), in the fourth most-congested county in the nation, started thinking about motorcycles: “There’s got to be a way to get to these accident scenes sooner. Why can’t EMS incorporate them into our daily rescue response?”

The precedents were there: European ambulance services have used them for years; and in this country, crowded pedestrian-based events have established that bike medics with pared-down gear reach patients faster than medics in four-wheeled vehicles. So, Bas wrote a proposal and submitted it through the county’s “Employee Suggestion Program.” The green light came back with one caveat from budget-conscious higher-ups who said, “Let’s see if we can partner up with the private sector.”

BMW of North America stepped up to the plate—refurbishing 10 former California Highway Patrol motorcycles, fitting them with red lenses—and donated them free and clear to MDFR. Bas was put in charge of the Motorcyle Emergency Response Team (MERT) pilot program, and it took off with a roar. Currently, 75 paramedics are available as rotation allows.

With two responders per MERT team, the county is divided into three sections for six motorcycle medics to patrol at peak commuter hours. Equipped with, among other things, IVs, airways, oxygen, cervical collars and AEDs, their goals revolve around decreasing response time.

“We want to augment the system—not replace the engines and rescue units, but to speed things up for them,” says Bas. “Reducing response time means gaining access to patients quicker and assessing their injuries faster. Minor ones, we can treat. We can also stabilize patients who meet BLS and ALS criteria until rescue units arrive. If we have to triage an MI scene or a patient meets trauma criteria—that’s how much faster we can get air-rescue and backup units there.”

Response times have been drastically cut to an average of 2–3 minutes. “While we’re patrolling, we’re also monitoring the radio and our pagers; every time there’s an accident, we get paged. That gives us the opportunity to jump on the calls,” says Bas. “Still, everybody’s surprised by how quickly we’re getting there.” The great thing about that, he says, is it frees up an engine and a rescue unit to answer a critical ALS call somewhere else.

—KR