PORTSMOUTH, Va. — Portsmouth Fire Department officials said Thursday that two more of their personnel tested positive for coronavirus.
Jim Hoffler, the Portsmouth Fire, Rescue and Emergency Services Chief, said their staff has had a total of five people test positive for the virus. One person has returned to work after their symptoms cleared.
Cases are rising in the department.
"We had several this morning that came in and after a while of being here they started feeling like they were developing symptoms,” Hoffler said. “So, we sent them to have them tested."
Hoffler said currently 11 staff members -- including the four who tested positive -- are in home isolation.
"We had almost 30 people out at one time,” Hoffler said. “We had one day where we had a significant amount of overtime.”
We've learned protocol is ramping up.
Hoffler told us they just got a new shipment of PPE and they'll make sure everyone wears it on emergency calls. When a team arrives on scene, he said one firefighter will take the lead. If the patient shows coronavirus symptoms, they will tell the rest of the team to put on their PPE.
"We are trying to minimize the risk to the public and to our people, and to our families,” Hoffler said.
He said their companies are still fully staffed because fire and rescue workers are working overtime while the department looks for new recruits to staunch staffing shortages.
The Portsmouth Professional Firefighters and Paramedics union reached out to us in an email and said not everything has been kept running during the virus staffing shortage:
“We are relying on SEVERAL members working up to and over 72 hours of overtime bi-weekly to keep all of our companies in service. During the last 14 days we have had NO PARAMEDICS on the ambulances MULTIPLE TIMES,” the union’s statement said.
They said Station Four was out of service for a while, and the overtime is dangerous for firefighters and the community.
“Having to utilize overtime to keep the city safe for the public is dangerous for our members," the union's statement said. "Having Firefighters and Paramedics constantly working in stations they are not assigned to is leading to a DANGEROUS SPREAD of the virus in our department.”
They also asked for the community’s prayers.
“We will continue to fight this virus and work to protect and care for our citizens,” the union’s statement said. “We hope that when this pandemic ends and we return to business as usual that Dr. Patton, and Chief Hoffler will see how vital to the safety of the city that the staffing and retention needs of our department is finally met.”
Hoffler said they have eight open firefighter positions and two paramedic positions.
"We are currently in the hiring processes for full-time firefighter recruits, full-time paramedics, part-time paramedics, part-time advanced EMT’s and part-time basic EMT’s," Hoffler wrote in an email.
Hoffler said 21 Academy recruits will be going back into Emergency Operations at the end of their training, but he didn't say how soon that would be.
"They think that they can take the ambulance to the hospital and they will get waited on quicker, and that's not the truth,” Hoffler said