PHOTO: It’s a Tuesday afternoon at North Lyon County Fire Protection District’s Main Street station when a call comes in. Captains and firefighters, moments earlier busy with day-to-day paperwork and engine maintenance, snap to attention. Moments later, they are on the road to one of the many calls they receive per day.
“It’s not just the volume of calls, it’s the diversity,” firefighter Bill Snyder said.
North Lyon firefighters responded to 2,800 calls in 2018 and just over 3,000 calls in 2019. They currently spend an average of 19 hours per day responding to calls, 80 percent of which are medical calls.
Like much of rural Nevada, the fire department doubles as ambulance service, and with the nearest hospitals located in Reno and Fallon, they are trained to handle everything. A woman overdosing on Oxycontin in her car. Childbirth. An accident that ejects a two-year-old in a car seat. A kid with his finger stuck in a steering wheel.