With the recent hot weather, Oregon’s cool lakes and rivers seem like a great way to find relief. But they are also dangerous. There have been several fatal drownings locally in the last couple of weeks. Eugene Springfield Fire Chief Mike Caven says it’s water rescue season and his crews have been kept busy.
KLCC’s Rachael McDonald asked him to talk about two recent fatal drownings on the Willamette River.
Caven: The first one, on July 3, started with an individual who was on a flotation device, enjoying the river without a life vest or personal device on. They got into some bit of trouble. A caller saw the individual floating down the river. By the time we got there, a bystander was performing CPR in a shallow area in the middle of the river. Unfortunately, that call didn't have a positive outcome.
The individual was resuscitated by crews, transported, and they later succumbed at a local hospital.
The second drowning incident occurred a little bit further upstream, in the Springfield area, where someone who was swimming in the river, was entangled in what we call a snag, or a pile of branches or debris. Again, a swimmer recreating typically doesn't wear a flotation device or a life vest. So we really don't have a lot of bystander insight to see what happened with that individual, how they got in distress. But, it's a good example of, even if you're confident enough in your swimming abilities, debris or strainers as we call them, in the water, are deadly. They're deadly to rescue swimmers too.
McDonald: Well, what are some tips that you would like to share with people to stay safe on the water?
Caven: I think first and foremost is, if you're not experienced in the water, familiar with swift water, even if it's really hot outside, our rivers aren't your best idea. The water is colder than we think. It moves fast, (and it) contains a lot of pressure when you get into a challenging position.
"Even if it's really hot outside, our rivers aren't your best idea. The water is colder than we think. It moves fast, contains a lot of pressure. " — ESF Chief Mike Caven
So, you need to be confident, comfortable in the water if you're going to recreate in the river. If you're going to recreate in the river, utilizing a river-approved flotation device whether that is a boat, kayak, raft, or, river tube, and that's an important distinction, as many of the people that we rescue year over year often found floating on some type of, you know, inexpensive, easy to get, pool floatation device, whether it's a doughnut, a raft. Even what is sold as a fishing raft at local stores, those aren't designed for swift-water environments, because they're not reinforced to take sharp rocks, sticks, and those types of things that can cause an issue to arise really quickly.
And then if you're going to do that in one of those approved devices, do it while wearing a life vest so that when you do get in trouble, your chances of survival are pretty exceptional.
It's rare that we find somebody in a fatal water incident who is wearing an approved life jacket.
McDonald: So you mentioned this is water rescue season, but throughout the year, Eugene Springfield Fire responds to everything from house fires to medical emergencies. How do you balance all the demand for emergency response and are there times when you can't respond to everything?
Caven: It's a great question. We've continued to get busier year over year. Last year we had nearly 100,000 individual unit responses that made up about 50,000 independent or individual calls, out of 16 fire stations. So it's a lot of work. We're incredibly busy compared to our peers as a transporting fire department with an aircraft station and regional hazardous materials team, water rescue, confined space rescue. We do it all.
Very few do as many things as we do and or as busy as we are, and so, it is a challenge. Our crews are often stretched thin. The things that we've implemented over the last year to improve response reliability for life threatening emergencies is to reduce the number of people that we're sending to lower acuity or low risk medical emergency calls, which are proving to be the overwhelming strain on the system.
McDonald: Well, and the loss of an emergency room here in Eugene has had a huge impact on the community and on your department. How have you adjusted since then?
Caven: You know, that's an interesting story. Obviously, we've seen some impacts without having the ER downtown as a primary access point for people who can't get care elsewhere, or are turned away by one of the for-profit urgent cares in the area.
The reality, at the time, for Eugene and Springfield Fire Departments in 2008 when that hospital moved its primary service, all critical emergencies had to go to Springfield. So really since 2008, we've had a tremendous strain on our resources, meaning the same three to four ambulances that were on duty to cover Eugene at the time are now several miles away in Springfield, whereas before, we'd all be congregated downtown transporting people. Springfield crews would be down here, you know, with folks, and so really that loss of an actual hospital is what hit us the hardest. Now what we're feeling the burden of which you hear out there is the ‘wall time’ or the amount of time it takes ambulances to offload their patients. Because just like we're working to triage calls, so is the ER. And when people utilize 911 or the ambulance for non-life threatening issues, they're not prioritized to come off of that ambulance's gurney, sometimes for hours. And that leaves our community without ambulances, and that is an issue that really popped up a few years ago and has grown, to a real challenge in the system.
So, the problem started in 2008 when we lost a full-service hospital in Eugene. The loss of the ER is more of a frustration for us as far as access goes.
