FORT WORTH, Texas — Fort Worth firefighters on Saturday will install signage on biking trails at Gateway Park in an effort to improve emergency response times there.
Medics have had a difficult time finding injured people in the park, especially on bike paths that wind through dense foliage and trees.
Dozens of Gateway Park visitors require medical attention each season, Fort Worth Fire Department battalion chief Christian Harvey said.
"We've really just had to do the best we can and that was taking more time than we were comfortable with," Harvey added.
In some cases, first responders have considered deploying helicopters to try and locate people who need help. Navigating backwards from the trails to a waiting emergency vehicle can be difficult for medics carrying a rescued patient, too.
Harvey and the Fort Worth Mountain Bikers' Association began working on a potential solution about four years ago. Together, the team decided the park's trails need locators.
In total, firefighters will install 52 signs along the Gateway Park's pathways. Each marker is color-coded and features a unique letter 911 callers can relay to a dispatcher.
"Instead of an almost needle-in-a-haystack situation, we now have reference points the patients can relay to us," Harvey said. "We can simply look at a map and go, 'This is where they're at.'"
The bikers' association helped identify locations where riders are most likely to be injured, typically because of difficult obstacles like ramps or berms. Crews will place markers near those hurdles and space other signs between those technical locations.
The bikers' group also helped firefighters select staging locations that provide medics entering the park the most efficient path to a particular point on each trail. Harvey credited the association with the work, noting "they know those trails better than anyone."
The city of Fort Worth agreed to pay for the signs.
Guessing, Harvey said he "wouldn't be surprised" if new signage cuts in half emergency response delays. Already, he says, city leaders are discussing implementing a similar plan at Marion Sansom Park.