FIREFIGHTER EMTS, PARAMEDICS GET VACCINATIONS
Recipients to eventually prepare, administer shots themselves
The first dozen of an expected 300 San Diego Fire-Rescue Department paramedics and emergency medical technicians presented their biceps for a COVID-19 vaccination Thursday.
They lined up outside the department’s training facility in San Diego around 8 a.m. to receive the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
Some filled out paperwork as their colleagues, who had already been trained to deliver the vaccinations, set up inside.
Assistant Fire Chief John Wood saw it as a kind of extension to the holiday season.
“It’s like Christmas morning, right?” Wood said. “Everybody’s like, ‘Let’s get here and get things going,’ and really, you know, it’s about thinking about others.… I think that’s the philosophy of most people and I think that’s a good philosophy.”
The firefighters waiting in line Thursday were among about 1,000 SDFD personnel eligible to be vaccinated in the county’s first-priority group, known as Tier 1, Phase 1A, Wood said.
Firefighters who are EMTs or paramedics are in the top-priority group — along with acute care workers in hospitals and skilled nursing facility workers and residents — because of their status as emergency medical personnel and their ability to vaccinate others, said county spokesman Michael Workman.
Wood said almost all SDFD firefighters are EMTs or paramedics.
The vaccination is voluntary for eligible SDFD personnel, he said.
“In the greater good, the bigger scheme, the quicker we get vaccinated, the quicker everyone else in other tiers gets vaccinated,” he said, “because the county ... they do
a great job, but no agency would have the staffing to be able to get to that level, to vaccinate a whole county. So to do that for the public, they’re going to need us.”
If Thursday’s vaccinations went as smoothly as expected, they would continue today and beyond until they had vaccinated all eligible personnel, he said.
Everyone vaccinated will have their second dose, set aside to be delivered 21 days after the first dose.
Fire Chief Colin Stowell said most SDFD firefighters want to get the vaccine right away, but he knew some would be reluctant, so he and union leaders were vaccinated Thursday.
“If there are still any people who still don’t know if they can trust it for sure, we want to show that we believe in the science and we’re confident in the vaccine,” Stowell said. “And we feel like it’s really important for us to not only protect ourselves as individuals, but by us protecting our workforce, we’re
better able to protect the communities we serve.”
Already the fire department had trained 50 firefighters to care for, prepare and deliver the vaccine. Doses were delivered to another 100 firefighters in the course of the training, Wood said.
Those 50 trained firefighters will train their colleagues, he said, which will increase the department’s capacity to help vaccinate other public safety personnel, such as police, when they become eligible to receive it.
Generally police are in the next priority group, Tier 1, Phase 1B, as “essential workers,” according to guidelines on the county’s website. Also in that list are teachers, corrections officers, and food and transportation workers.
All firefighters getting vaccinated Thursday knew how to give a shot, but to vaccinate others, they must learn important protocols specific to the pandemic and the vaccine, Woods said. For example, if the Pfizer vaccine gets too warm, it dies.
Firefighter-paramedic Wendy Melendrez-Muñoz, who had been trained to deliver the vaccine, said she was excited and nervous about vaccinating her colleagues.
Under the eye of a supervisor, Melendrez-Muñoz drew the vaccine mixed with a diluting agent into a syringe and pressed out any air. Once she, the supervisor and the recipient firefighter had all checked the the syringe, the recipient rolled up her sleeve and received the shot.
“I just saved a life!” MelendrezMuñoz announced with a laugh after she withdrew the needle from her colleague’s arm.
“I feel like I’m really making a difference,” Melendrez-Muñoz said. “We always feel that way, but this is a little different.”
The recipient firefighter agreed, saying it felt like they were part of history in the making, helping to end the pandemic. She said the injection wasn’t painful.
After the firefighters were vaccinated, they were monitored for side effects. If none appeared, they were released after 15 minutes.
Of the 150 firefighters who had been vaccinated before Thursday, seven had experienced side effects. Pain at the injection site was the most frequent complaint, Wood said; no one experienced lifethreatening side-effects.
Health care systems in San Diego County have received more than 200,000 doses of vaccine from Pfizer and Moderna, plus an unspecified number from federal allocations and private pharmacy allocations for skilled nursing facilities, Workman said.
He said the county systems have not yet finished vaccinating the approximately 116,000 people in Tier 1, Phase 1A.