EMS Week activities set
Mercy Hospital treated the Uniontown Fireman’s Ambulance Service and the city’s fire and police departments to a cookout Wednesday to celebration of Emergency Medical Services Week. Jeff Wess, manager of Mercy’s pre-hospital services department, which works with ambulances services throughout western Pennsylvania, and five co-workers grilled hamburgers and hot dogs for the city’s emergency responders out of the fire station.
“This is in celebration of EMS week,” said Wess. “EMS providers are being honored for what they do for their communities.”
He said Mercy’s pre-hospital service department provides medical direction, offers training and develops protocols for emergencies to ambulance services in Uniontown, Fairchance and Markelysburg.
“We address what happens before they get to the hospital,” Wess said.
He said Mercy has also given the ambulance services a new device called an intraosseous drill that enables paramedics to drill a needle into a patient’s bone marrow when they can’t inset a needle into a vein.
“EMS is there for you just like the police and fire departments,” Wess said. “People think it just happens. It doesn’t just happen. It’s medicine. It takes a lot of education.”