DENVER — With crowds expected on the 16th Street Mall for Saturday’s New Year's Eve fireworks show, Denver Health is making sure they can respond to emergencies as quickly as possible.
Thirty-six medics are part of Denver Health's paramedic bike team, and while this is not the first time they've covered New Year’s Eve at 16th Street Mall, this has the potential to be a busy year.
“It sounds like this coming Saturday there's going be mild temperatures,” said Salvatore Serrian, a paramedic with Denver Health. “So it's definitely going to be more crowded and definitely a bigger chance of somebody getting hurt or something happening.”
Serrian is part of the All Terrain Medical Unit at Denver Health, a group of medics that patrol large-scale events in the city like New Year’s Eve with what they call an ambulance on two wheels.
“Pretty much anything on the bike is in the ambulance that we use throughout any normal shift in the city,” Serrian explained. “Big events like this there's usually a lot of road closures around. We have the ability to get into those tight areas, get into those road closures, get into those big crowds of hundreds and thousands of people and provide first immediate care.”
The bike team patrols events year-round. Serrian said the cold weather certainly adds a challenge to their response.
“With the cold weather, obviously we have to worry about snow, ice, low visibility if there’s any kind of fog or clouds or anything like that,” he said. “Once the fireworks go off obviously the smoke starts playing a factor for things as well. So, we definitely prepare ourselves as best as we can and try to stay as warm as we can because if we’re freezing it’s difficult to do our job.”
Denver Health’s bike team will patrol the 16th Street Mall Saturday evening. Two firework shows will take place at 9:00 p.m. and midnight.
For the best viewpoints, Downtown Denver Partnership advices people to stand anywhere along the 16th Street Mall.
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