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The City of Kenosha Emergency Medical Services is dedicated to providing compassionate Basic and Advanced Life-Support care, as well as education, transportation and related services that are reliable, professional and tailored to the needs of the community. EMS strives for prompt and appropriate response to all medical emergencies.

The City of Kenosha Fire Department is licensed through the State of Wisconsin Health and Family Services. Medical oversight is provided by Dr. Tom Grawey. The Department contracts with Gateway Technical College for EMS continuing education and the training of new paramedics.

In June of 2020, the EMS Division of the Kenosha Fire Department was awarded, for the fourth consecutive year, the "Gold Plus" recognition from the American Heart Association for actions taken to identify and aggressively treat patients having heart attacks.  The award is based on criteria of early recognition and proper and timely treatment which results in improved outcomes for patients suffering acute coronary events.  The department was recognized with the Bronze award in 2014, Silver in 2016 and Gold "Plus" in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.
 
In March of 2020, the Kenosha Fire Department was recognized by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services Coverdell Stroke Program for excellence and performance improvement in the treatment of stroke patients.  The department was awarded the EMS Comprehensive Award for high scores attained in multiple areas of stroke recognition, assessment, treatment and documentation.

 

Paramedics Perform:

  • Advanced Life Support
  • Heart Monitoring
  • Defibrillation
  • Administration of Medications
  • Advanced Airway Management
  • Intravenous Therapy

EMT-Basics Perform:

  • Basic Life Support
  • Oxygen Administration
  • Bandaging
  • Splinting

To access and review the EMS Patient Care Guidelines, list of medications and Skill Standards, please click HERE.  Click on the various links within each document to view their contents.

Contact Info
  • Phone: 262.653.4097
  • Email:
  • Hours: Monday-Friday
    8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Division Leadership

William Glass
Division Chief of EMS

AEDEach year sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) claims the lives of approximately 250,000 people in the U.S. alone, according to the American Heart Association.  Unlike a heart attack in which blood flow to the heart muscle is temporarily blocked, the primary cause of sudden cardiac arrest is ventricular fibrillation (VF), a life-threatening condition in which the heart’s normal electrical signals become erratic, causing the heart to stop pumping blood effectively.  When this occurs, the victim immediately becomes unresponsive, stops breathing, and has no detectable pulse.  SCA may occur with or without a heart attack; but, either way – without intervention – it is deadly within minutes.  Defibrillation, or restoring the heart’s natural rhythm by applying an electrical shock, is the only definitive treatment for VF.

The underlying causes of SCA are varied and not all are well understood.  Many victims have no history of heart disease, or, if heart disease is present, it has not functionally impaired them.  SCA can strike both men and women, often without warning.

Surviving SCA is largely dependent on how quickly a victim is defibrillated.  For each minute that defibrillation is delayed, the victim’s chance of survival decreases by seven (7) to ten (10) percent (Larsen M.P., et al. Annals of Emergency Medicine 1993;22:1652-1658). Cummins, RO et al., Annals of Emergency Medicine, 1989;18:1269-1275).  When defibrillation is provided by community emergency medical services many factors can limit the timely delivery of lifesaving defibrillation to remote rural locations or to urban locations that may be difficult for emergency responders to reach due to the need to negotiate traffic, staircases, elevators, escalators, or crowds of people.  Thus, response times for paramedics or emergency medical technicians to arrive on-site with a defibrillator are often more than ten (10) minutes, resulting in average SCA survival rates in the United States of less than five (5) percent.

Both the American Heart Association and the National Center for Early Defibrillation have stated that if even 20% of SCA victims could survive, as many as 40,000 additional lives could be saved each year.