20 March, 1988

Radio Transmission Problems Force Move Of County Lifemobile to Junction Firehouse

The County lifemobile, which was stationed at Princeton Medical Center, has moved across Route 1 to the Princeton Junction Firehouse. It will remain there until radio transmission problems at the hospital are solved.

The lifemobile contains advanced life-support equipment and is staffed by trained paramedics. It is dispatched when such support is needed, for example when a person is suffering a heart attack.

Part of the State Mobile Intensive Care Unit (MICU) program, the lifemobile was moved to Princeton in June, 1986, when Borough and Township officials demanded that it be here.

“We can’t get radio communications at the Medical Center,” explained Mark Reading, administrative director of the MICU program, which is based at Helene Fuld Hospital in Trenton. The communications base is in Trenton, and the ridge line from Nassau Street down the hill to the hospital blocks transmission.”

He said the program is in the process of establishing an-other base station that would transmit from another part of the County and would, presumably, overcome the problem of the ridge. This effort, however, is only in its beginning stages.

Mr. Reading added that the lif emobile can still service the Princeton population because average response time from Princeton Junction is only six minutes.

The lifemobile has been back and forth between the Medical Center and the Princeton Junction firehouse since November of last year. A temporary radio station was in use in Princeton for a while, but this was abandoned because it was in violation of Federal Communications Commission regulations.

“We plan to move the unit back as soon as we have the ability to do so,” said Mr. …