Town of Cumberland, Maine - About the Rescue Department

The Cumberland Rescue Department is a Municipal Rescue Service that has provided emergency medical care to the residents of Cumberland 24 hours a day, 365 days per year for fifty years. There are 44 medics that make up the Cumberland Rescue. Of the 44 medics, there are three full-time paramedics including the Chief of the Rescue. There are 16 per-diem, part-time paramedics that cover the over night shifts and weekends. All of the paramedics are trained to deliver the highest level of pre-hospital medical care. The remainder of the medics are residents of Cumberland who volunteer a great amount of their time to help their neighbors during a medical crisis.

The Town of Cumberland ensures that every Rescue member is trained in all medical interventions up to their licensed level and its rescue vehicles are outfitted with "state of the art" equipment. All to ensure that Cumberland residents receive the best emergency care possible.

Currently there are two fully equipped and licensed ambulances. Rescue One is stationed at the Public Safety Building on Tuttle Road and Rescue Three is at the West Cumberland Fire Station on Blackstrap Road.

From 6 PM to 6 AM the Regional Paramedic Program is run out of the Cumberland Public Safety Building, 290 Tuttle Road. This cutting edge, shared municipal service is responsible for delivering Paramedic coverage to the towns of Cumberland, Falmouth, Yarmouth and North Yarmouth. To ensure adequate coverage, there are two Paramedics stationed at the Public Safety Building. Each are assigned a fully equipped "Fly Car" to respond to all calls and render Advanced Life Support to supplement the care of the requesting town's Rescue.

During 2005, the Cumberland Rescue Department responded to 739 requests for medical assistance, with 37 occurring on Chebeague Island. In addition, Cumberland Rescue has a "mutual aid agreement" with the surrounding towns. This pact ensures prompt medical care for all towns when their Rescues are busy. For the same time period there were 96 mutual aid calls to other towns and only one request from Cumberland for out-of-town assistance! A true statement of dedication and devotion of the Department's membership.

2006 Stats

	J	F	M	A	M	J	J	A	S	O	N	D	YTD
Calls	58	43	55	50	76	76	53	57	81	54	61	50	714
Island Calls	1	3	4	2	2	6	4	2	5	2	4	2	37
Mutual Aid Calls	3	3	8	12	9	13	8	9	9	7	5	9	95

2006 Recap

This past year saw a reasonable, yet very manageable increase in call volume, as compared to
2005. 846 times the "tone went off" calling the Rescue Department personnel into action. 37 were for the Chebeague Island Rescue and 95 were for mutual aid calls to surrounding towns.

In addition, during 2006 there were 547 requests for the Regional Paramedic. 33% of these requests were from Falmouth, 32% from Cumberland, 27% from Yarmouth and 7% from North Yarmouth. Response time (length of time from dispatch to arrival on scene) was an impressive nine minutes. This is an amazing fact given the size of the geography covered. In addition, 7% of the time the Regional Paramedic arrived on-scene before the individual town's ambulance and was there on average two-and-a-half minutes before the ambulance and the rest of the crew.

Along with staffing the Regional Paramedic Program, the Cumberland-based paramedic team responded to paramedic-intercept requests 55 times in 2006. These intercepts are when a local town Ambulance responds to a particular call and proper patient care requires a higher level of medical intervention than what they are currently staffed.

2007 Stats

	J	F	M	A	M	J	J	A	S	O	N	D	YTD
Calls	50	50	59	58	50	57	44	57	70	50	39	43	627
Island Calls	1	3	4	3	6	7	*	*	*	*	*	*	24
Mutual Aid Calls	6	12	9	11	10	6	5	15	11	11	7	7	110

* Chebeague Island seceded from Town of Cumberland on July 1, 2007

2008 Stats

YTD

Calls

Mutual Aid Requests

If you would like more information on what opportunities the Cumberland Rescue may offer you, please check out the Employment Opportunities section of the website.