A combination of staffing shortages and a high volume of 911 calls are driving long days for first responders in Baltimore City.

At a public hearing inside city hall Wednesday, Baltimore City Fire and EMS officials discussed the demanding workloads of the understaffed department.

“The equipment never gets a break, people never get a break, you never get a chance to write reports or that kind of stuff,” said Baltimore City Fire Department Deputy Chief of EMS James Matz.

According to Matz, response times remain steady at an average of about nine minutes per call. However, first responders are having to work overtime to get to those emergencies in a timely manner.

Per capita, Baltimore City receives more 911 calls than almost any other city in the nation. Because of this, the department said their crews are out responding to calls for more than 60% of the workday. Ideally, they say that number would be closer to 25%. This gives emergency crews time to fill out paperwork and take breaks. Instead, they’re constantly on the go. Matz said if workloads improve, so will response times.

“If we could get down to about 50% or less, that would give our members a chance to slow down and get to the higher priority calls, better patient outcomes, better response time,” he said.

In order to do that, one goal is to close the number of EMS vacancies. Last year, Rich Langford, president of the Baltimore Firefighters Local 734 Union weighed in on the staffing levels, saying many first responders are on the brink of a breaking point.

“The morale of this department is like that of a sinking ship. It can’t get any worse,” he said. “Members are completely fatigued, completely at their breaking point and there’s no end in sight.”

The department is currently about 50 EMS short. They say filling those positions with new summer recruitment strategies is a top priority.