A combination of a surge in emergency medical calls and summer thunderstorms kept firefighters and EMTs for the West Grove Fire Company busy on Friday, August 2, 2024. And that trend continued all weekend as well.

Starting before 8:00am and stretching until after 11:00pm Friday, WGFC first responders ran 29 emergencies from cardiac arrest to house fires, from wires calls to automatic alarms, from seizures to tree fires. Here is a summary of calls by time, nature, and municipality:

746am EMS New London
757am EMS West Grove
958am Fire/EMS Penn
1001am EMS Penn
1009am EMS Penn
1050am EMS London Grove
1225pm EMS Avondale
256pm EMS Londonderry
300pm Fire Franklin
316pm EMS Oxford
406pm EMS Franklin
420pm Fire Penn
430pm Fire London Grove
439pm EMS Penn
445pm Fire Penn
500pm Fire London Grove
508pm Fire London Grove
509pm Fire London Grove
523pm Fire Kennett
553pm Fire West Grove
603pm EMS Oxford
610pm EMS Penn
754pm Fire London Grove
901pm Fire Franklin
939pm EMS Penn
1030pm Fire Avondale
1033pm EMS New Garden
1034pm Fire Penn
1114pm EMS West Marlboro

It should be noted that many of these emergencies overlapped, with EMS units running simultaneous emergencies and fire units responding to different emergency situations across a wide geographic area. This is particularly true during the arrival of a significant thunderstorm, with a wave of fire-related dispatches between 4 and 6pm, that stretched into the evening. EMS crews had multiple calls as well at the same time in the 10am hour.

29 calls in one day is one WGFC's busiest days in memory, although not isolated. This has been a busy period for the fire company, and we are proud that our crews can step up to meet the needs of this community.

Update: Not only was Friday busy for WGFC EMS, but that trend continued over the weekend. Over the period Friday - Sunday, West Grove Fire Company ambulances were requested for emergency calls 46 times. And, continuing a trend, many of these calls overlapped -- meaning our crews were handling multiple emergencies at the same time. That was 23 primary calls, 19 times there were two calls at once, and four times there three calls at once. Well done EMS team!