Westport and New Canaan come to an agreement to share ambulances
WESTPORT — Having other towns’ first responders answer emergency calls when needed is nothing new, but Westport learned the hard way not that long ago that the mutual aid doesn’t extend to the ambulances themselves.
A new formal agreement between Westport and New Canaan should fix that and serve as a model for other agreements throughout the region. With it, towns will be able to add borrowed ambulances from other towns to their insurance while they’re using them. It also outlines the borrowing town is responsible for repairing or replacing any equipment damaged while they’re using them.
“This is not something that happens in the routine basis,” Marc Hartog, Westport Emergency Services’ deputy director told the selectmen on Wednesday. “This is truly the exception.”
He said this agreement likely won’t be needed often, but is good to have for when it is needed.
Under the general mutual aid agreement, the responding department will send a whole crew with the equipment to help out. It’s rare just the equipment or vehicles without the personnel are needed.
The need for something like this arose a few years ago, first when Norwalk reached out to Westport in need of an ambulance and then when Westport found itself in a predicament.
About a year and a half ago, two of Westport’s three ambulances were out of commission and so the Emergency Medical Services department turned to its mutual aid partners. New Canaan stepped up right away offering an ambulance for Westport to use, Hartog said.
Since they expected to have it for a week or so, Westport officials looked at adding it to the town’s insurance in the meantime.
Hartog said they were told by their insurance provider that wasn’t possible without a formal agreement and so returned the ambulance to New Canaan after a few days, not wanting to ask New Canaan to staff a crew in Westport during that time.
“That’s not the intent of the mutual aid agreement,” he said.
Luckily, Westport was able to have its ambulances up and running fairly quickly, he said.
“It didn’t truly hamper our operations, but it identified a need,” Hartog said.
He said this is the first time in his 22 years with Westport that the department needed something like this.
New Canaan has already approved the agreement. Hartog said his counterparts in Weston and Norwalk have also expressed interest in similar agreements.
Having more agreements will also put less burden on one town to meet the need and won’t be as much of an issue if that other town’s ambulance is also unavailable, officials said.
“This is the model that I think would be a terrific thing for the region,” Hartog said.