During emergency medical situations, the Grand Valley Police Department and Fire Department, as well as an ambulance, are often all at the scene to help.

Life EMS responded to 219 calls on the Grand Valley State University Allendale Campus in 2012 and just over 24 medical calls so far this year, said Shannon Gollnick, director of central operations for the Grand Rapids Life Emergency Services. The majority of these medical calls were due to students being generally sick or short of breath.

Gollnick said the dispatch protocols for Ottawa County response teams are very specific and detailed, and that after the 911 system is activated, GVSU calls are directed towards Ottawa County’s central dispatch. The dispatcher prioritizes the call based on the callers’ answers to a series of questions.

“There are priority one, two, and three calls,” Gollnick said. “A priority one call is the most urgent and serious types of calls, where both the ambulance as well as fire respondents, who often are medical first responders, respond to the call. A priority two call is considered to be serious, but not necessarily life-threatening, things like appendicitis, acute abdominal pain, or a broken foot. A priority three call is a general medical call that isn’t an emergency, things like people needing help in the bathroom or a sore throat or bottom of the barrel types of calls.”

Another medical call responder to GVSU is the Ottawa County Fire Department. Chief Michael Keefe said the firefighters are the first responders to medical calls for service, and the department has people who are medically trained to help people experiencing medical issues.

In 2012, there were 207 medical calls on campus and so far in 2013, until the end of February, there have been 34, Keefe said.

“We often take care of the student’s needs until the ambulance arrives, or if the ambulance arrives before us or at the same time, we will help each take of the student,” Keefe said.

Brandon DeHaan, assistant director of GVPD, said that if people call the department and have an emergency medical situation, the dispatchers forward people to 911.

“You need an ambulance and a fire department for medical emergency situations,” DeHaan said. “Our number is a non-emergency number, and we always encourage students to call 911 directly.”

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