Welcome to the "unofficial" web page of Southern Madison County Volunteer Ambulance Corps. in Hamilton, NY. SOMAC, as its known, was founded in 1986 as an Advanced Life Support volunteer unit servicing the town and village of Hamilton, the town of Earlville, the village of Hubbardsville, and providing ALS intercept services to multiple locales. SOMAC has two type III ambulances. The main rig,512, is a 1998 Braun Chief III which we just took delivery of this September. There are three shifts per day, from 6am-noon, noon-6pm, and 6pm-6am. In general there are 4 people assigned to each shift including a crew chief who is a Critical Care Technician (Level III) or a Paramedic (level IV), an EMT, a driver, and a "Significant Other" which can be anyone including a second ALS tech, a second EMT, an observer or rider, etc. SOMAC's members wear pagers that allow them to be "toned out" to 9-1-1 calls. SOMAC responds to approximately 600 calls a year. Once the call has been received by Madison County Dispatch, the duty crew has four minutes to respond to the station using "green" lights on their personal vehicles. For the safety of SOMAC members, factors like bad weather are taken into consideration and longer response times will result. Once the crew has arrived, the rig is placed "out of service" and proceeds to the call. Becuase we have four people per crew, equipment is prepped while en route, including setting up IV bags, prepping medications, or gathering the appropiate items for the call. Becuase of the large geographical area we respond to, local volunteer fire depts are usually dispatched first response as well. Many SOMAC members are also volunteer firefighters, making for smooth transitions of care. So, while en route, we will radio ahead to the Fire dept. on scene for additional information. Upon arrival, we treat the patient as needed. Most patients we see are then transported to Hamilton Hospital, also known as Community Memorial Hospital. However, if Hamilton is full, our resource hospital will order us to transport to one of the many hospitals in Utica, NY, about a thirty minute drive. Also, certain critical patients will receive medevac helicopter transportation from the NYS Police, Guthrie One, whom we just had a TRAINING with, Albany Medical Center Med Flight, or another medevac provider.
SOMAC
The side of 512, our main rig
The SOMAC patch
I know these pictures aren't the greatest. They are actually really great prints, but the lab I used managed to screw up the scan for them all so they all look fuzzy. Sometime after Spring break I'll be sure to put up some new and better quality pics, but for now, these will give you the idea.
HOME Click here for a tour of SOMAC's Rigs!
