Emergency Medical Services

EMS Mission

The mission of Abingdon’s Emergency Medical Services is to provide 24-hour 7 days a week pre-hospital advanced (ALS) emergency medical care and services to the residents of lower Gloucester County. We do this with a dedicated staff of volunteers.

See a description of some of the state of the art equipment used by AVFR.

Additionally, we ensure the following:

• We conduct community CPR training programs and Fire/EMS public Education throughout the area.

• We respect the dignity of all patients and others we encounter.

• We provide professional individual and department development opportunities to all members. • We constantly conduct our missions in a safe and efficient manner.

• We welcome all individuals as members regardless of race, color, nationality, religion, sex, or age.

Within the AVFR there are 105 members, 26 of which are joint fire and EMS members, and 19 are EMS only members.  All EMS members must be CPR certified and have passed the Virginia Defensive Driving class to operate the medics.  They must also pass a series of qualifying driving stages in order to be released to operate the medics.  This insures safe operations during emergencies.

All providers are certified as EMT-B (Emergency Medical Technician – Basic), EMT-I (Intermediate), or EMT-P (Paramedic).  AVFR provides the training in-house or provides support for the members taking classes away from the stations.  Further, we provide monthly in-house training and monthly EMSAT training (EMSAT is a state sponsored program of monthly real-time training broadcast via satellite).

EMS members are expected to pull three duties a month, and have no requirements to respond on fire calls.  Joint members pull two duties a month and are expected to respond on 10% of the fire calls. Pulling duty means being at the station.  AVFR provides a duty uniform to its members.  This consists of ……. In addition to medical calls, EMS members respond with firefighters in the AVFR 25’ Boston Whaler when a marine search and rescue call comes in, to motor vehicles crashes, and to structure fires or large woodland wild fires.