First Responders’ Veterinary Network enlists veterinarians to help save lives

The idea behind First Responders’ Veterinary Network (FRVN) is simple yet profound: when animals are involved in a traffic accident or fire, deploy veterinarians to the scene like firefighters, police officers and other first responders.

FRVN is the brainchild of Leigh J. Mack, MD, PhD, a clinical research physician and volunteer emergency medical technician and firefighter with the Blue Grass Fire Department in Scott County, Iowa. He was previously a civil affairs officer for the South Carolina State Guard and has experience responding to disasters, motor vehicle accidents and housefires.

He’s seen injured dogs block access to their injured owner, so first responders have to put on bunker gear to sustain a dog bite to get to the person who needs help—which slows response time. He’s also concerned whenever a driver accidentally flips their trailer transporting horses or livestock on a back road or blocks up an interstate during an ice storm.

So his vision is to incorporate interested veterinarians into their local county’s emergency management system (EMS) so they will get an alert when there’s an animal at an accident scene—and if they’re available, head to help.

“This has been a gap. The gap is the quick response,” he says. “This is basically the highest level of medical intervention that you can do on scene.”

Mack feels the easiest way to put veterinarians into the EMS is to make them a volunteer with their local fire department, which requires about 20 hours of training—and then protects volunteers under the community’s liability umbrella.

“So you’ve got this vet who’s already licensed to practice medicine, and then you just ‘slice’ them—that’s a military term where you basically attach somebody to a unit—to a volunteer fire department so they can train with them and work with them,” he explains.

When Mack receives requests for a medic, the dispatcher usually shares detailed information about the scene before he goes out, such as how many people are in the vehicle, approximate ages of the people and how injured they are. So if there’s a dog or cat in the car, dispatch will know to alert a veterinarian on the FRVN team who knows what to do.

“They’re trained in FEMA incident command,” he says. “So when they go to the scene, they know where to park, who to go see, where to stay out of, where they position themselves on fire ground or in the accident area so they can work effectively.”

He estimates that about 85% of calls will involve dogs or cats—and that there’s a huge need to help them. When he started crunching numbers based on statistics from EMS systems, he found over 200,000 motor vehicle collisions have a dog or cat in the car each year in the United States, and around 4,000 traffic accidents involve livestock. Plus, there are fires in homes and barns that involve animals. (He didn’t include wildfires in his calculations, but thinks veterinarians could potentially respond to those disasters, too.)

“When you put it all together, you’re probably looking at 230,000 situations where you could probably use a vet,” he says. “I was kind of like, ‘Ooh, this is a lot bigger than I thought.’”

Mutual benefits

Participating in FRVN will be a win-win for everyone involved, according to Mack. It will make emergency responses smoother for first responders and speed medical care for both people and pets. It will be a relief for injured individuals who may need to be hospitalized to know a veterinarian is onsite and caring for their injured pet.

“The vet rolls out and they can stabilize that dog faster than they can drive that dog to a facility,” he says.

Veterinarians will also benefit from the program. In addition to the reward of giving back to the community and helping save lives, veterinarians will be viewed in a favorable light by their community and may be featured on news segments, he notes.

Additionally, FRVN will help veterinarians submit reimbursement forms to insurance companies to cover the medications, equipment, supplies, mileage, services and other costs—just as Mack can file a reimbursement claim when his $5,000 bunker gear needs to be replaced after being covered with diesel fuel at an accident scene.

“That’s what we want to call it, a reimbursement for the equipment and the drugs and supplies they’re using in a reasonable call-out fee,” he says. “We’ll try to bridge the gap on stuff they’re not reimbursed on.”

Plus, veterinarians will qualify for a blue light for their vehicle so they can speed to the scene while drivers pull over to let them pass. They might also qualify for continuing medical education credits toward their license if they teach first responders about handling animals in various emergency situations, according to Mack.

Implementing First Responders’ Veterinary Network

FRVN is in the early stages of development as it works toward nonprofit status, fundraises and identifies “champions” who will work with fire chiefs to implement local programs with 8-10 veterinarians per region.

Mack believes the first two county programs—including one in Iowa—will launch this summer, and hopes to have at least 15 counties across the U.S. involved by the end of the year.

“We’re shooting for getting a hundred counties nationwide at the end of three years,” he adds.

An important step toward that goal is bringing on Eva J. Ojolick, DVM, CCRT, a veterinarian based in Nova Scotia, Canada – who is licensed as a veterinarian in Florida (she’s a dual citizen) as well as Canada – as the organization’s chief veterinary medical officer.

Ojolick is working on developing standard operating procedures as well as contents of “jump bags” that FRVN will provide to participating companion animal veterinarians with supplies they’ll need to bring to traffic accident and fire scenes.

She’s seeking input from veterinarians with experience helping in natural disasters, house fires or traffic accidents to share their ideas and experiences through the contact form on the FRVN website.

“I would love the veterinary community to come together on this,” she says. “If there are people out there that have had hands on (experience) either in disaster zones or local incidences and they know a little bit more about when you’re right there in the thick of it, I would love to hear their stories. I would love to hear what they would like to have or what should be on board to help us come up with ideas and protocols.”

She’s excited by the prospect of helping first responders be more confident dealing with incidents that involve animals, and that when FRVN veterinarians respond to a traffic accident or fire, they will be able to help animals as well as other veterinarians in their community. For instance, if a dog has a broken leg from a car crash and is thrashing around, an FRVN veterinarian can help stabilize the dog before bringing him to an animal hospital.

“You’re not going to have that chaos when the animal arrives,” she says. “I’d rather see an animal like a cat or a dog or even a horse that had first aid and first evaluation assessment transferred already stable or a little bit more stable than an animal two days later, where now I’m two days behind and nothing was taken care of.”

Ojolick has family members who are first responders and firefighters who are eager for FRVN programs to start in Canada, she notes. She looks forward to helping create networks of helpers to improve outcomes for animals.

“In society, animals are becoming more and more important to everyday life and to their families than they ever were in the past,” she says.

Ultimately, with so many ways for veterinarians to get involved in supporting FRVN – from sharing experiences to donating or volunteering—Mack hopes they’ll feel inspired to help the cause.

“Do it for your community,” he says. “And do it for the animals.”

For more information about First Responders’ Veterinary Network, visit: www.frvn.org.

Photo credit: Courtesy of  Leigh Mack and Eva Ojolick

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