Amherst Fire Department Experiences High Call Volume on Halloween

Source: Fire Chief Lindsay Stromgren

The Amherst Fire Department experienced an extremely high demand for service this Halloween night which strained resources beyond capacity, resulting in a significant number of mutual aid ambulances being called to assist.  During the four-hour period from 10 p.m. on Oct. 31 through 2 a.m. on November 1, the department received forty-one calls for service, mostly for EMS.

In anticipation of a busy Friday night Halloween, the department hired additional staffing on overtime to put thirteen firefighters on-duty instead of the usual eight minimum on-duty, which enabled the fourth ambulance to be placed in-service. Despite the additional staffing and having four staffed ambulances, twenty-two of the forty-one calls required ambulances from other services to be called for mutual aid.  Over the course of the four-hour rush, mutual aid was requested from Action-Hadley ambulance, Belchertown Fire, Easthampton Fire, Granby Fire, Northampton Fire, Northfield EMS, Orange Fire, South Hadley Fire, and South County EMS.  Many of the mutual aid ambulances handled multiple calls, in some cases returning from the hospital to respond to another call.  On-duty Amherst Fire personnel not assigned to an ambulance handled pending medical calls initially while waiting for an ambulance, using EFR (Emergency First Responder) engines which are equipped with paramedic equipment.

Of the forty-one calls handled during the four-hour period from 10 p.m. Friday to 2 a.m. Saturday, twenty-three were to the UMass campus, and three to the Amherst College campus.  Thirty of the EMS calls resulted in patients being transported to the hospital, and thirty-five of the calls were due to a primary cause of alcohol intoxication or other drug use. Ambulances responding to and from Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton were also hampered for a time by a broken down train blocking Damon Road.

The last mutual aid ambulance was cleared by 2:30 a.m. Saturday, and although calls continued past 2 a.m, the on-duty Amherst personnel were able to handle the continuing demand for service.

The Amherst Fire Department thanks all of the communities that sent mutual aid, and to the various police agencies, including Amherst Police, Amherst College Police, UMass Police, and the Massachusetts State Police, who were also responding to these calls.