Michigan football schedule has Ann Arbor bracing for more emergency incidents

ANN ARBOR, MI — The Ann Arbor Fire Department is expecting to make a lot more emergency runs than usual with this year’s University of Michigan football schedule.

Predicting there will be more high-incident game days with 100-plus emergency calls, Fire Chief Mike Kennedy appeared before City Council on March 11 to make the case for purchasing a second basic life support ambulance for his department.

“This football season is going to be unlike what we have experienced before,” he said. “It’s not noon games against a sleepy community college in September.”

There are home games against Texas and the University of Southern California on the lineup in September and he expects them to be big night games, he said, suggesting the city should brace for a dramatic increase in emergency incidents.

City Administrator Milton Dohoney joined Kennedy in making that argument, saying another factor is UM is introducing alcohol sales at the Big House.

“When you factor the drinking that will go on before the game, all during the game and after the game ... your run volume is going to go up,” Dohoney said.

City officials are still discussing whether to buy a used ambulance, which may come with maintenance challenges, or a new one, which will be more expensive.

Dohoney is expected to present his budget recommendations to council in April for adoption in May.

September is always the fire department’s busiest month, coinciding with incoming UM students and home football games, Kennedy said.

“Games are always an extreme stress on emergency services for the city,” he said.

Having noon games in September in the past gave the fire department a little sigh of relief, he said, but he expects the USC and Texas games to be prime-time games given their western markets and the likelihood of national media coverage.

The fire department handles between 20 to 30 emergency calls per day and that goes up to 100-plus when there are big games against rivals like Michigan State or Ohio State, Kennedy said.

“And so we’re expecting those 100-plus call days to be, instead of two games a year, we’re probably looking at four or five games a year now,” he said.

While the Ohio State game is away, this year’s UM schedule includes eight home games. In addition to USC and Texas, that includes Fresno State, Arkansas State, Minnesota, Michigan State, Oregon and Northwestern.

“For many of these games, I have the strong desire to want to be able to put on additional rigs,” Kennedy said. “We don’t have that capacity right now. We just have the one ambulance.”

The fire department introduced an ambulance service a year ago to fill gaps in emergency response coverage with Huron Valley Ambulance facing staffing challenges.

Council Member Jenn Cornell, D-5th Ward, asked Kennedy if there are more medical emergencies happening or if it’s just a continued need to fill a void left by HVA.

“It’s both,” Kennedy said, citing increases in emergency medical calls, as well as responses to storm events.

Kennedy and Dohoney also argued the city should establish an official emergency operations center.

“For a city our size, we really are at a deficit not having a turnkey emergency operations center,” Kennedy said. “Especially the last year, there were multiple instances where that would have been beneficial for city staff to get together.”

Dohoney said it’s the one thing the city doesn’t have that, in his opinion, it must get, with or without state or federal funding for it.

During weather-related emergencies, city staff have perfected the art of talking through group chats, but that’s not the way to handle an emergency, Dohoney said.

“You have to have that center,” he said. “We need the synergy. It’s got to be hard-wired. And we need to be in the same physical space to properly respond.”

Deputy City Administrator John Fournier highlighted a new emergency operations center and a new fire station as two of three projects for which the city is seeking state funding, along with the city’s new election center.

The city also is seeking federal funds to design a new train station, acquire property for the Treeline trail and make improvements to Barton Pond’s embankment.

As for the ambulance service, Kennedy said the fire department purchased its first ambulance as a safety net to back up HVA, but making emergency runs with it has become a regular occurrence. A second one is now a necessary operational need for the department, he said, adding there’s still a national paramedic shortage and HVA is dealing with that.

“We’re getting called when they go to zero status that they don’t have units available,” he said.

Firefighters are becoming more comfortable staffing an ambulance and handling patient transports, he said.

“If a patient meets certain thresholds, we can cancel HVA and transport ourselves,” he said, adding that helps free up HVA to handle patients who need more critical care and it’s having a countywide impact on making paramedic resources available.

Council Member Dharma Akmon, D-4th Ward, asked about the expense of another ambulance in relation to new fees the fire department plans to charge for transports. The fees are intended to cover costs, Kennedy said, indicating he’ll have more details in the coming months.

Kennedy also said he’s still trying to line up funding for a new Fire Station 4 on the city’s east side and one option may be to bond against state funding the fire department receives, so construction could move forward in 2025.

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