Press Releases

New Orleans EMS’ 116 employees, who worked every day of the 10 day Carnival season, responded to over 1,800 calls and transported over 1,200 people to local emergency departments throughout this year’s revelry. In the largest Carnival season since Hurricane Katrina, this is an increase of over 200 calls compared to last year’s season.

All of New Orleans EMS’ 116 employees will work throughout Carnival weekend. Our Paramedics and EMTs will be strategically placed along all parade routes in order to provide the highest level of pre-hospital emergency care in the most efficient manner.

The temporary urgent care clinic will capable of handling minor care type injuries and illnesses. For example: simple lacerations requiring stitches, sore throats, coughs, mild asthma attacks and acute alcohol intoxication.

New Orleans EMS Paramedics are now using sirens that you can not only hear but feel.

A worker on the France Street Warf falls 20 feet into the hull of a barge

Southern Arkansas University Tech (SAUT) Film and Video Production Department completed filming the City of New Orleans’ first public safety public service announcement (PSA) this past weekend. 

Governor Bobby Jindal has appointed Dr. Jullette Saussy, the award winning New Orleans Emergency Medical Services (EMS) director, to the Louisiana EMS Certification Commission.

A longtime volunteer and  25-year veteran of the City of New Orleans Department of Emergency Medical Services (NOEMS) received the top honors this week from the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians (NAEMT) in Las Vegas.

Friday, August 29, 2008 New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered a voluntary evacuation which also implemented the New Orleans’ City Assisted Evacuation Plan. This sent New Orleans Emergency Medical Services into overdrive.

At 6:30pm New Orleans EMS (NOEMS) received a 911 call at Pontchartrain Beach, located at Elysian Fields Ave and Lakeshore Dr. 

After a ninty minute extrication New Orleans EMS paramedics transported a 47 year old male to West Jefferson Medical Center in stable condition

The City of New Orleans Emergency Medical Services (NOEMS) department proudly announces that two of its personnel received the state’s top honors at the annual Louisiana National Registered Emergency Medical Technicians (LANREMT) Conference this past weekend.

Two EMS paramedics were being hailed as heroes after they rescued a woman who had jumped into the Mississippi River on Monday night.

According to Jeb Tate, an EMS spokesman, the incident occurred shortly after 10 p.m. near the Aquarium of the Americas – that’s when he said paramedics David Frezel and Keeley Williams made the agonizing choice to jump in the river and try and save the woman.

NEW ORLEANS -- The city's offices of Emergency Preparedness, Emergency Medical Services and Homeland Security are sponsoring a full scale drill Friday to train local public safety personnel on the proper way to handle incidents involving Amtrak passenger trains. The mass casualty and extrication drill will take place at 9:30 a.m.at the Amtrak station, 1001 Loyola Avenue.

The American Association of Suicidology held its annual conference in New Orleans this week and on April 14, 2007, Sandra Dixon received a certificate of recognition for her commitment, dedication and outstanding service to her community and for being available to assist all employees in the aftermath of Katrina.

On April 13th, 2007 sixteen EMS Employees were Awarded Civil Service Longevity Service Pins.  The service pins are awarded to City of New Orleans employees who are still active and have been here for at least 15 years. The pins are given in 5 year increments after the first 15 years of service.

How do you go about rebuilding an EMS department when most of the responders and even the director have suffered severe damage and displacement from their homes? That's the situation New Orleans, LA, EMS is facing six months after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city and the emergency department that serves it. Headed by Jullette Saussy, MD, whose title includes both director and medical director, N.O. EMS is a field unit system centered around a single base of operations. In such a system, all the assigned employees show up to the base before each shift and then are fielded out to locations throughout the city, based on the call volume need, as determined by system status management. The advantages of this system mean that Saussy and Deputy Director Mark Reis--both of whom had only started working in the department eight months prior to the storm--are in contact with everyone who works for them every day, and providers are close to an emergency call at any given moment. The disadvantages became apparent when flooding washed out that base, 25 of 40 vehicles, all the computers and the telecommunications systems.

"EMS did function [in New Orleans]," says City of New Orleans Director of EMS Jullette Saussy, "just not in a traditional fashion. New Orleans EMS helped thousands of people on foot and in the MASH unit and during the evac. We just did not have our ambulances, a CAD system and 10-97 time. We never quit functioning. We were just temporarily forced to improvise — what we do best!"

Sunday, Aug. 28, 2005
As Hurricane Katrina approaches, we gather in a circle inside our ambulance bay on Moss Street. About 80 of us EMS staffers are about to take ambulances stuffed with medical gear to various spots around town to ride out the storm. We listen as Deputy EMS Director Mark Reis reminds us of the key elements of our disaster plan.

USA TODAY's Robert Davis, trained as a paramedic, spent two days with New Orleans paramedics as they made and carried out plans to treat and evacuate the 20,000 people stranded at the New Orleans Convention Center, giving him exclusive access to the rescue operation. This is his account of what it was like to be at the center of that storm