Though it’s staffed by trained firefighters, most of the calls that come in the Hanceville Fire Department — just as at most fire departments — aren’t related to things that burn.

Instead, the majority of the approximately 1,300 calls the department has received this year have been related to medical emergencies. Medical calls, mayor Kenneth Nail estimates, represent “the upper 80 percent range of the call response volume that our fire department handles,” as he recently told The Times.

Now, thanks to recently-obtained certifications that step up their ability to administer basic lifesaving care, Hanceville has more firefighters who can act in place of an EMT when they arrive at the scene of a medical call before an ambulance does. With a total of seven firefighters (five full time and two part time), the department now has a total of four firefighters who’ve obtained Advanced Life Support certification from the Alabama Department of Public Health.

“We’ve been at the basic level all along, and have been able to run basic [medical response] calls for years,” said Hanceville fire chief Rodger Green, himself already an ALS-certified fire fighter. “Now we have gone to an ALS service, which enables us to start IVs and give certain medications for, for example, seizures, heart attacks, strokes, and diabetes calls.

“Before, we could only do just basic splinting, wound care, and oxygen — just the basic stuff. Now, we’re advanced to the paramedic level, which is the ALS. We can do the same patient care as a paramedic would with an ambulance. We can start that advanced care, if it’s a situation where someone needs it.”

The new certifications come just as the department’s fleet has expanded, after recently obtaining a new response vehicle intended to give fire responders more options when call activity gets especially busy. As part of a lawsuit settlement in the wake of a 2019 Black Warrior River wastewater discharge, the Alabama Attorney General’s office set aside part of the payout for a new medical response truck, aimed at helping Hanceville cut down on the department’s response times when multiple emergency calls are coming in at once.

Together, the added response capabilities of both the personnel and the equipment mean Hanceville firefighters can often arrive at the scene sooner — and do more to help once they get there.

“This really helps out when there’s not an ambulance available,” said Green. “Our ambulance service does a good job providing transport, but sometimes they get overwhelmed and might be delayed just a few minutes getting to the scene. Now, we can go ahead and start advanced care before they get there.”