OAK PARK : Paramedics Urged for Fire Station

The Oak Park Municipal Advisory Council voted this week to ask county officials to place firefighter paramedics in the local fire station.

Prompted by concerns over the ambulance response time in the recent stabbing death of an Oak Park teen-ager, the council voted 4 to 0 to ask the county to put a firefighter paramedic in the community’s only fire station.

“We’re moving into the 21st Century, and we have to move along with it,” said Council member Pitt Gilmore, who is a firefighter in Los Angeles County.

“We like our rural life here in Ventura County, but that rural life has cost lives,” Gilmore said.

Oak Park, with 13,000 residents, is about a 15-minute drive from the Thousand Oaks ambulance station, which serves the area. The station is operated by Pruner Ambulance.

Before the vote, Ken Maffei, the president of the Ventura County Firefighters Assn., spoke in support of the firefighter paramedic program.

Maffei said that about 15 Ventura County firefighters are trained paramedics. He said that his association supports using these firefighters as paramedics in Oak Park and Moorpark, rather than paying to train other firefighters. Moorpark has also requested that the county place paramedics in the city’s two fire stations.

Maffei told the council that having a paramedic at the Oak Park fire station would not necessarily have saved the life of Craig D. Hastings, the 16-year-old boy who died two days after he was stabbed Sept. 6.

But a paramedic would have arrived at Hastings’ side with the fire truck in about five minutes, compared to about 15 minutes for the ambulance.

Maffei estimated that it could cost about $55,000 annually for equipment, salary and ongoing training to put a firefighter paramedic in Oak Park.

Because Oak Park is unincorporated, it would have to depend on county funds to pay for the program.