DEFIANCE, Ohio — The lengths local first responders go to in order to stay safe during the pandemic is eye-opening. The unknown is always there but now there are new levels of protection and they have to be ready for whatever comes.
“Through the course of our duties, you come in contact with quite a bit,” Defiance Firefighter and Emergency Medical Technician Zach Moore explained.
“It’s inevitable that somebody’s going to get taken out by (COVID-19),” he added.
It’s the nature of the job for first responders across the country and around the world and that’s why extra layers of safety are in place.
From face masks normally used during fires now being used on some medical calls to fog machines and UV light for more thorough sanitization, each safety step these firefighter-paramedics take is essential.
“It’s important to keep us safe and to keep our patients safe, a lot of the calls that we’ve been on lately are COVID positive runs and we need to maintain vigilance with protections that we have, the cleaning process,” Moore said.
So that if we do have a patient who is not COVID positive (and) we take them in the ambulance, we don’t expose other people and make everything worse.”
Staff members' clothes are removed and washed in special detergent. A special cleaning solution is used to wipe down high-touch surfaces.
Defiance Fire Chief Bill Wilkins has worked in fire service for 43 years. He says in this line of work there is always the unknown.
“I think what we’re seeing now is a change in our response, we’ve taken it to a higher level, our protection for our personnel is at a higher level,” he said.
Out of 29 staff members in the department, so far eight have contracted COVID-19. Chief Wilkins says most members have chosen to receive the first dose of the vaccine and they are expected to receive the second on Jan. 28.
Even so, the chief says these protocols will continue for some time to come.
Moore says he got the shot to protect those closest to him.
“I have a family at home, got a toddler and I surround myself in it at my job, doing what we do we’re continuously exposed to this stuff and I want to do everything I can to keep my family safe when I go home,” he said.
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