U.S. News: System Answers Question "What happens when rescuers need rescuing?"

Two technology companies have teamed up to outfit emergency response vehicles with automatic crash notification reporting.
Roadside Telematics Corporation of Aliso Viejo, Calif., announced today that the company has teamed with Vetronix Corporation of Santa Barbara, Calif., to outfit emergency response vehicles with automatic crash notification technology and real-time crash event reporting.
According to the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA), emergency vehicle crashes, responding to and returning from emergencies, represent the second leading cause of loss of life for firefighters. As a result, the USFA in partnership with the U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office recently launched the Fire Service Emergency Vehicle Safety Initiative to support development of technology to mitigate emergency vehicle crashes and subsequent loss of firefighters lives.
In response to the Fire Service Emergency Vehicle Safety Initiative, Roadside Telematics, a provider of emergency roadside medical messaging solutions, and Vetronix Corporation a provider of hardware devices and the software designed to detect a crash and download data from the on-board vehicle Event Data Recorders (EDRs) have teamed to combine their respective technologies as part of a comprehensive automatic crash notification and event reporting system for the public safety industry.
In addition to providing the required on-board vehicle systems, Vetronix has built out a complete “end to end” telematics infrastructure delivering critical crash information and medical data via wireless and Internet pipelines to emergency communication centers over a Telematics Service Provider network.
This capability uniquely positions Vetronix to deliver a comprehensive “turn key solution” including Automatic Crash Notification (ACN), GPS location identification, crash severity reporting, and fusion of crash victim vital medical information enabling efficient and effective roadside medical treatment.
The public safety emergency vehicle solution combines the RoadMedic web service from Roadside Telematics and the Crash Data Retrieval System from Vetronix, to provide the emergency dispatch operator with seamless, instant notification of an emergency vehicle crash, the specific geographic location of the crash, automatic relay of vehicle crash data, such as severity of impact, secure access to the emergency responder’s vital medical data, and wireless transfer of the data to an on-board patient monitoring and measurement system in the dispatched ambulance.
“Knowing instantaneously when and where an emergency vehicle crashes, its severity, and crash victim(s) personal medical information enables timely and appropriate delivery of roadside medical care to save firefighter lives during the ‘golden hour’,” said Lawrence E. Williams, President and CEO of Roadside Telematics.
“Our combined technology provides emergency dispatch operators real-time access to all necessary data to support rapid management of ‘informed responses.’
“The partnership between Roadside Telematics and Vetronix is focused on optimizing telematics technology, infrastructure, and applications to save lives by improving incident notification and response. This application is an ideal example of the power of the newly evolving field of telematics,” said Jim Zaleski, president of Vetronix.