9.3 Requesting an Ambulance

Purpose

To outline the minimum information required by the South Australian Ambulance Service (SAAS) from lifesaving services/State Operations Centre regarding a patient’s condition.

Overview

SLSSA expects lifesaving services to align their procedures with the information gathering requirements of the ambulance service.

Procedure

Good incident management involves the correct and concise collection and communication of information.

SAAS has a standard set of questions it must answer before it can respond by sending an Ambulance to an incident. To maximise the effectiveness and efficiency of a response, lifesaving services (including State Operations Centre) should align their procedures to the following.

Note: Ambulances should be requested via the State Operations Centre (SOC) (call sign SurfCom) – or via Triple Zero only if the SOC is not available.

Patient Reporting

Lifesaving personnel should provide the following information to SOC regarding a patient’s condition.

Lifesaving personnel should continue to monitor the Channel 3, as the SOC will provide any relevant updates over this channel.

A request for an ambulance should not be delayed until all information is received. Updates may be provided.

Primary Information

The SOC is required to provide the following information to the ambulance service:

1. Patient Sex.
2. Patient Age.
3. Patient weight.
4. Mechanism of Injury (what happened).
5. What is the injury.
6. Breathing Present?
7. Level of Consciousness.
8. Chest Pains?
9. Patient location/access point (beach, club house first aid room etc.).
10. What action/treatment lifesavers are administering.
11. Update if patient condition deteriorates (loss of consciousness, difficulty breathing etc.).

Secondary Information

• Is the patient changing colour?
• Is the patient clammy?
• Does the patient have a history of heart problems?
• Did the patient take any drugs or medication in the past 12 hours?

Incident Reporting Matrix – Patient Injury

Remember: Position, Problem, People, Progress

Action	Explanation	Example
Inform SurfCom (via radio)	Identifies your call as an emergency and prioritises it above non-emergency transmissions	“Rescue, Rescue, Rescue – SurfCom, SurfCom, this is [Club/ Service Name], over”
Position	Where is the patient located? How can emergency services best access them?	“Patient has been transported to the Surf Club, at the corner of Main Road and Smith Road. A lifesaver will be positioned on the side of the road to direct the ambulance, over”
Problem	Outline what has happened – mechanism of injury	“SurfCom we have one patient who has been run over by a surfboard and has severe laceration to their head”
People	Outline the details of the patient and their condition	“Patient is Male, aged 36yrs old. Patient is breathing. Patient is conscious. Patient is bleeding severely from the head. Patient has no chest pains, over”
Progress	SurfCom should be updated if the patient’s condition changes (deteriorates or improves)	“SurfCom this is [Club/Service Name] the patient has lost consciousness, over”

Reference

• Public Safety and Aquatic Rescue training manual, 35th Edition, Module 3 – Radio Operations, Incident Procedures