08/31/2026
Ever wonder why a fire truck shows up when you called 911 for an ambulance?
At our department, the answer is pretty simple.
It’s help.
Our ambulances normally have two people on them. An engine brings another 3 or 4, and almost all of our firefighters are also paramedics.
So when that fire truck pulls up, we’re not just sending a big red truck full of people to stand around. We’re turning a two-person ambulance crew into 5 or 6 people who can take care of you.
Sometimes the engine is actually closer and gets there first. Our engines carry almost all of the same medical equipment, and the crews working on them have plenty of ambulance experience too, so they can start assessing and treating the patient before the ambulance even gets there.
Other times, it’s simply about having enough hands.
On a serious breathing call, cardiac emergency or major trauma, there can be a lot happening at once. Someone may be assessing the patient while someone else is putting them on the monitor, starting an IV, getting medications ready, talking to family or figuring out how we’re going to get them out of the house.
Sometimes we just need the extra muscle too. Getting a sick or injured person out of an upstairs bedroom isn’t always a two-person job.
And if we get there and realize the patient doesn’t need all of us? The ambulance crew releases the engine and we go back available for the next call.
Every department does things a little differently, but ours automatically sends an engine and an ambulance to medical calls and lets us figure out what we actually need once we get there.
So if you call for an ambulance and a fire truck shows up too, dispatch probably didn’t misunderstand you.
We just brought more help.
