Small, volunteer emergency response organizations in the northwestern United States are getting help from the U.S. GPS system to help coordinate the life-saving efforts using donated receivers. Northwest Medstar, a critical care transport service that airlifts critically ill or injured patients to medical facilities throughout the Pacific Northwest, contributed the equipment to the emergency responders.

“Medstar services 45,000 square miles in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana,” Michael Day, outreach educator and clinical nurse specialist for Northwest Medstar, told Satellite News. “The vast majority of that area is rural [and] is served by volunteer fire and ambulance services [that] usually don’t have a lot of money.”

In order to help the agencies better respond to emergencies, and help Northwest Medstar be in a better position to do its job, the company began donating Garmin eTrex receivers to the volunteer services. Northwest Medstar is able to provide the receivers through grants from private organizations. The most recent deployment was in northern Idaho using a grant from the Idaho Community Foundation. In total, Northwest Medstar “has given out almost 500 of these devices” since the program began in 1999.

“In the past, people have relied on local geographical landmarks, Bald Mountain, for instance.” Day said. “Do you know how many Bald Mountains we could find if we used a mapping program?”

With GPS coordinates to guide the way, Northwest Medstar can more efficiently respond to an emergency, Day said.

To illustrate the importance of GPS in a rescue operation, May cited a father and two sons that were horseback riding in northern Idaho. The three were riding along an embankment roughly 50 feet about above the river when the father’s horse slipped, causing both to fall down the embankment. The sons found their father unconscious and face down in the water. After reviving the father, one of the sons was able to call for help using a GPS-enabled mobile phone. Northwest Medstar was able to locate the group using the coordinates provided by the phone and transport the father to a medical facility.

While it may not have been a GPS receiver deployed by Northwest Medstar, “that is an example of how GPS saves lives,” May said. “To be honest, we don’t keep track of how many people have called us” with GPS data based on receivers that we have deployed.

–Gregory Twachtman

(Michael Day, Northwest Medstar, daym@nwmedstar.org)