In Part 1, we covered the different Fire Departments you see around town. Here we will cover the difference between the City of Patterson Fire Department and Patterson District Ambulance (PDA).
When a citizen calls 9-1-1 they are not concerned with exactly who shows up on-scene to help. As a citizen who votes and advocates for the future of the City of Patterson, some understanding of the operations of the ambulance service in Patterson is important. The ambulances in Patterson are run under the name Patterson District Ambulance and are run by the Del Puerto Healthcare District. If you look at your property tax bill, you will see an assessment that provides the funding for this ambulance district. The ambulance services are a public entity, run by a board, to operate in the City of Patterson for ambulance services. They are not run by the Patterson Fire Department.
This means the personnel on the ambulance are trained in medical care and not in fighting fire or rescue. They are on-scene to provide medical care and transport to the medical facility that will continue your treatment.
This also means they are a part of the ambulance services of Stanislaus county. The county uses a closest unit response matrix. This means when West Side Ambulance (Newman) does not have an ambulance available PDA can be dispatched to Newman for a call. Also, when PDA has finished dropping off a patient at the hospitals in Modesto, they could find themselves running calls in Modesto. This means there are times when there are no ambulances in the town of Patterson and only Patterson Fire is here to provide immediate emergency medical care for our citizens.
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