EAST PALESTINE -- The village fire department is hosting a sign up event for the new MyID service.
MyID is being made available to both East Palestine and Unity Township residents. The sign up event is scheduled for Sunday from noon to 7 p.m. in the East Palestine Community Center located at the public park.
Village councilman Robert Runnion hopes people in the community take advantage of the new service.
"MyID is a program that helps first responders aid victims more effectively and efficiently," he said.
The fire department is partnering with MyID to provide the service to the community.
The MyID company touts itself as a "comprehensive medical ID solution that provides an easy way to access, store and manage your health information."
How it works is the company sells a variety of products like bracelets, tags, stickers and wallet cards that feature a QR code that can be scanned by medical personnel to get access to your online medical profile in a few short seconds.
Creating your own medical profile is free and the profile can be linked to as many MyID products as you like.
The products allow first responders to scan the QR code quickly in the event of an emergency thereby removing any time delays in accessing important health information related to the person in need of help, or in the event that a person cannot communicate.
For example, if someone falls or has another kind of emergency that renders them unconscious or incapable of communicating first responders can simply scan the QR code instead.
According to the fire department's yearly report for 2022 the department handled 1,381 total service calls. Of those, 1,139 were for EMS services, 185 were for fire, and 57 were for motor vehicle accidents.
The fire and EMS crews invested more than 2,000 hours of training last year.
Also just recently the department recognized its members with 5 years of service and more during its annual dinner that is funded by the firefighter's association.
The fire department posted on its Facebook page that three members were honored during the dinner. They were
firefighter Robbie Hill, who received his 5-year award, firefighter Jonathan McElroy, who received his 20-year award and captain Josh Foster, who received his 20-year award.