Medic One Boasts Average Response Time of Under 5 Minutes

On average, last year it took less than five minutes from the time an emergency call reached dispatch for King County emergency medical teams to arrive on the scene, according to King County officials.

The figures come from the EMS 2008 Annual Report released today (Sep. 10) by Public Health – Seattle & King County.

King County Medic One and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) is a collaboration of five dispatch centers, seven paramedic providers, and 30 fire departments.

In 2007, the county’s emergency teams responded to a total of 172,502 calls to 9-1-1, of which more than 50,000 were for individuals needing advance life support, such as resuscitation.

The survival rate for individuals who had suffered a cardiac arrest from ventricular fibrillation when they were with someone who could call for help was 40% in King County over the past 3 years, the report says.

In this form of cardiac arrest the heart loses its rhythm and stops pumping blood, and unless rhythm is restored, death occurs within a few minutes. Other major cities report cardiac survival rates is as low as 1-5%, officials said.