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Ogdensburg Volunteer Rescue Squad responds to 2,547 calls in 2016

Posted 2/8/17

OGDENSBURG --  Ogdensburg Volunteer Rescue Squad responded to 2,547 calls in 2016. An annual report released by the squad says they responded to an average of seven calls per day. OVRS averaged …

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Ogdensburg Volunteer Rescue Squad responds to 2,547 calls in 2016

Posted

OGDENSBURG --  Ogdensburg Volunteer Rescue Squad responded to 2,547 calls in 2016.

An annual report released by the squad says they responded to an average of seven calls per day.

OVRS averaged 7 calls a day, 212 calls a month with the busiest month being August.

The OVRS responded to 1753 incidents in the City of Ogdensburg, 297 in the Town of Oswegatchie, 64 in the Town of Lisbon, 86 in the Village of Heuvelton, 34 in the Town of Morristown, 32 in the Town of Waddington, 44 in the Town of Hammond, and 14 in the Town of

 Depeyster. The squad also took calls in the towns of Macomb, Russell, Hermon, Gouverneur, Dekalb, Madrid, Massena and Rossie. In addition, we responded to the Village of Rennselaer Falls and were available to many other agencies for ALS intercepts.

OVRS also made itself available for 21 transfers from hospital to hospital, for the critically ill patients, usually to Syracuse or Burlington VT.

The majority of responses stemmed from breathing problems with 223 calls and falls with 229 calls.

Other common calls were choking incidents at 152 and pain at 159 and traffic accidents at 108.

The squad also responded to 106 abdominal pain complaints, 80 animal bite incidents and 26 overdoses and a variety of other incidents.

On average, Ogdensburg Volunteer Rescue Squad was enroute to a call within 2.49 minutes and arrived on scene in less than 4.30 minutes of dispatch in the 13669 zip code. “When you include all surrounding areas, we service, our on-scene time is an amazing 7.23 minutes, especially considering many of our travel times are well over 20 minutes,” the report says.

OVRS has 45 volunteers, with a 15-member increase in the last two years alone.

“At a time when the majority of Emergency Medical Services Agencies around New York State continue to drop in volunteer members, the Ogdensburg Volunteer Rescue Squad continues to maintain our membership and cover our volunteer crews both day and night. These very dedicated volunteers donated in excess of 21438 hours to their communities in 2016. At the current average rate for paid providers, this represents a savings of over $643,104 to the communities we serve in salary, benefits such as health insurance and pensions,” the report says.