Wheeling Fire Department Capt. Jason Milton said he has seen technology change the work he does in emergency medical service work over the almost 25 years he has been with the department.

“We have seen so many changes, especially technology-driven changes,” he said. “There has been so much advancement technology-wise that I can’t imagine what another 10 years is going to bring.”

One of these major changes took place around five years ago, when the fire department introduced a computer dispatch software to their vehicles.

This tells first responders the location of a call, maps the route for them, and includes information like the location of hazards and the city’s fire hydrants.

This is a major shift from before, when first responders essentially had to memorize Wheeling’s streets, Milton said.

“Before when we had a call, if you didn’t know where you were going you basically had to dig out a big three-ring binder that had a map of Wheeling and you had to look up the street you were looking for … and then hope that the map book was updated,” he said.

Especially now, when the force is very young and filled with people who are not originally from the Wheeling area, this system is essential, Milton said. Having the internet in the back of ambulances has been a “game changer.”

“The nice thing about the iPads is it’s constantly updated because we have been getting a lot more firefighters and paramedics coming to work here that generally didn’t grow up or were born and raised in Wheeling where I was,” he said.

There have been a lot of retirements recently, meaning the department is very young.

This cycle will repeat in another 20 to 25 years, Milton said.

“It’s a lot of growing pains, not only to bring them up to speed with just the industry itself but then the lay of the community and different things like that but they adapt well and get by but that’s where that technology, with our mapping systems and stuff like that also helps that learning curve, as well.”

The iPads also allow for electronic signatures from patients and other processes that used to be pen-to-paper. There has been a general shift to electronic technologies replacing mechanical devices.

“You’re finding that technology is not only finding its way onto the ambulances but onto the fire trucks as well. The pumps are being controlled by computers, the valves are being controlled by computers,” he said.

This inundation of technology can be slower to adapt to for the older EMS and firefighters, but Milton thinks “a lot of this stuff is very good for the industry.”

Other new technologies embedded in first response vehicles are also on the horizon, like more ultrasound equipment on EMS trucks and being able to feed EKG information live to the hospital.

When it comes to changes in what first responders are getting calls about, the opioid crisis has been a leader.

“The obvious trend here of late has been the opioid epidemic by far,” Milton said. “That kind of flipped us on our ears around here.”

While EMS workers have long carried Narcan, at the start of Milton’s career it was rarely needed.

During the peak of the opioid epidemic, usage of the life-saving drug skyrocketed.

“It was a very uncommon call to get an overdose or something like that. So the opioid epidemic was definitely a big change,” Milton said.

However after a peak in 2023, overdose deaths have been trending downward.

“It is nice to say that we have seen a decrease in those calls over the last year to year and a half,” he said. “”Something is going in our favor, whether that’s public education, the fact that Narcan is readily available, or a combination of all of the above.”