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Emergency Medical Service response on September 11

This section describes the major aspects of the response of the FDNY’s Emergency Medical Service (EMS) to the World Trade Center attack. It has three parts. The first describes how EMS officers at the scene exercised command and control and how EMS Dispatch personnel handled communications issues. The second deals specifically with how EMS officers deployed and managed resources and personnel. The third covers how they addressed planning and logistics issues.

COMMAND, CONTROL AND COMMUNICATIONS
On the morning of September 11, the EMS dispatcher for the Manhattan Central borough area was also handling all dispatch needs for the Manhattan South borough area, where the World Trade Center is located. Normally each borough dispatch area has its own channel and dispatcher, however, the channel usually dedicated to Manhattan South was not being used due to insufficient staffing levels at the Emergency Medical Services Dispatch Center at that time.

Upon confirmation that an airplane had flown into WTC 1, the Manhattan Central dispatcher immediately assigned ambulance units to the scene and transferred the incident to the EMS citywide dispatcher, in accordance with EMS protocols. These protocols require that multiple casualty incidents (i.e., those involving more than five patients) have a dedicated dispatcher. This also leaves the regular borough dispatchers free to concentrate on activities within the borough not related to the incident. EMS personnel assigned to a multiple casualty incident are directed to switch their radios to the citywide channel...

http://www.nyc.gov/html/fdny/pdf/mck_report/ems_response.pdf

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