First responders continue to serve despite PPE shortage

First responders from Union County's volunteer and professional fire departments are continuing to serve our community despite a nationwide shortage of personal protective equipment. Pictured is the El Dorado Fire Department Central Station.
First responders from Union County's volunteer and professional fire departments are continuing to serve our community despite a nationwide shortage of personal protective equipment. Pictured is the El Dorado Fire Department Central Station.

Personal protective equipment is in high demand and short supply and with first responders manning the front lines in the fight against the coronavirus (COVID-19), they are not afforded many opportunities to practice social distancing or self-quarantining.

Law enforcement officers, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, health care workers and many other essential employees come into direct contact with the public each day, some without the proper protective equipment.

Even though PPE supplies are running low worldwide, Bobby Braswell, director of the Union County Emergency Management Office and a former deputy chief of the El Dorado Fire Department, said he is working to make sure local emergency services are equipped as best as they can be in the midst of the COVID pandemic.

The contents were light in the last three shipments of PPE — gloves, isolation gowns/aprons and a few face masks and shields — that the UCEMO received within the past several weeks, Braswell said, adding that he has divvied up the supplies evenly between the El Dorado Fire Department Emergency Medical/Ambulance Service, which serves the city, and ProMed Ambulance, which serves Union County.

“What little I’ve gotten, I’ve tried to divide it up among the two ambulance services because they have to come in contact with people,” Braswell said, adding that supplies that are received by his office are earmarked for fire, ambulance and law enforcement services.

“It’s better than nothing. It helps you get by for another week or two or three,” Braswell said.

The shipments were funneled through the Arkansas Division of Emergency Management.

Braswell said the supplies could easily fit into the trunk of a car, whereas normal orders, which are placed by the county itself through its regular vendors, typically “could fill up the back end of a pickup truck.”

“I picked them all up from state of Arkansas,” Braswell said of the supply shipments. “The first two came from the national stockpile and the last one was an order that came from the state itself. The state had ordered it and it came from overseas.”

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that the shipment that was ordered by the state came from China and it arrived April 12 at a federal surplus warehouse in North Little Rock.

The delivery included six truckloads of gloves, isolation gowns, face masks and shields that were distributed to health care providers throughout the 75 counties in the state, according to the ADG report.

Braswell said Union County’s portion of the cargo had to be shared among 16 counties that make up the ADEM’s southeast region.

Some of the other counties in the southeast region are Ouachita, Bradley, Ashley and Calhoun.

“There was very little in it from each order and we all got the same thing. Ashley County, Bradley County all got the same thing that Union County got,” Braswell said.

“They look and see what kind of cases are going on in your county and, of course, the counties that have the most cases get the most equipment. We don’t get as much as Pulaski and Jefferson counties,” he continued.

As of April 23, 28 positive COVID-19 cases were confirmed in Union County with 12 recoveries, according to information provided by the Arkansas Department of Health. No coronavirus-related deaths have been reported in the county.

Braswell said the PPE item for which there has been a surge in demand is face masks.

“That’s the hardest thing to come by. The biggest problem you run into is you don’t know when to use them and when not to use them — when the case calls for it, when someone is presenting virus symptoms,” he said, “I would say we’re probably all right, as far as ambulance service, for face masks at least another three weeks.”

Hand sanitizer is also in short supply these days, Braswell said.

Competition for PPE is coming from four different areas, including hospitals, long-term care facilities, doctors’ offices, health care clinics and police, fire and ambulance services.

Braswell said he hopes the tide change and the availability of PPEs will increase soon, noting that with a surge in demand, suppliers are working to catch up.

“These people that are mass-producing things may catch up in the next week or two and, hopefully, things will get a little easier,” he said. “All of this stuff has been hard to come by ever since. We’ve just never been prepared for anything like this. We’re just kind of waiting for more stuff to come in.”

Making do

Chief Sonny Harper, of the Norphlet Fire Department, a volunteer service, said that while the department is running a bit low on PPE, crews are faring well during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Harper heads up a department made up of 12 to 15 volunteers.

Though monthly meetings have been canceled, crews have not had any difficulties responding to calls for service, which, Harper said, have decreased within the past several weeks.

“It seems like the calls have slowed down a little bit. Last month, I turned in five or six calls, which is average. This month, I’ve seen one, which is still about our average,” Harper said, adding that the calls for service have mostly been for house fires.

Like the UCEMO, Harper said the Norphlet Fire Department is making do with the PPE that is available.

“I could use a little more. Being a small department, we don’t get as many gloves or masks as the larger departments do. Even when we do make fires, we’re trying to stay away from each other as much as possible. That’s difficult to do sometimes but we’re doing pretty good,” Harper said.

“The only thing we might could use more of is hand sanitizer. We’re running down low on it,” he said. “I noticed the other day the guys were lined up in the back, washing their hands with a good anti-bacterial soap and hot water, so we’re doing good with that.”

Other volunteer fire departments in Union County include:

• Cairo

• Calion

• Faircrest

• Hibanks

• Huttig

• Junction City

• Lawson/Urbana

• Mount Holly

• Old Union

• Parkers Chapel

• Strong

• Three Creeks

Braswell noted that house fires and accidents make up the majority of emergency calls for rural fire departments in Union County and the departments do not operate an ambulance service like the El Dorado Fire Department.

El Dorado Fire Chief Chad Mosby reported that ambulance calls have decreased in the past several weeks.

“I think it’s out of an overabundance of precaution. People are staying at home and if they get sick, they’re taking care of themselves at home and trying not to go to the doctor unless they absolutely have to,” Mosby said.

He said ambulance calls were expected to climb by mid-April as the COVID-19 outbreak continued but that has not been the case locally.

The number of COVID-19 cases in Arkansas is projected to peak early next month.

“The people of El Dorado and Union County as a whole have done a really good job of heeding the warnings and engaging in social distancing and limiting travels. That in itself has resulted in a decrease in EMS calls,” Mosby said. “That’s a trend pretty much statewide and a lot of it is because people are aware virus is out there.”

photo

LANXESS treats EFD workers to steak lunches in gratitude.

To help slow the spread of COVID-19, the EFD has changed some its operations.

“We have adjusted our staffing accordingly to minimize exposure, not only in the course of our duties and interacting with the public but also in interacting with each other at the fire station,” the fire chief said. “We have isolated our crews and we encourage them, even around the station, to exercise social distancing as much as possible and to wear (face) masks.”

Mosby said firefighters and EMTs are reusing face masks whenever possible.

“Basically, if someone uses a mask, they use it for the rest of the shift as much as they can,” Mosby told members of the El Dorado City Council during a Finance Committee meeting March 31.

He also issued a directive for firefighters and EMTs to immediately shower and launder their uniforms upon returning to fire stations after coming in contact with someone who exhibits COVID-19 symptoms.

Since the volume of calls for service did not ramp up, as was anticipated this month, the EFD has enough PPE to make it past April.

“We are doing OK as long as we stay at the current pace,” Mosby said April 23.

He advised residents to continue adhering to public health guidelines and not to get complacent after the proverbial (COVID-19) curve has been flattened.

“It means the virus will be around longer. If people quit social distancing and start gathering in groups, it could become a situation where we have a spike in cases here locally,” Mosby said.

“We have to consider in the long term that we have to do things differently when we interact with other people. Just because we don’t have a high caseload here doesn’t mean we won’t,” he added.

Upcoming Events