Manatee County residents to have chance to see EMS unit in action Friday

MANATEE -- Manatee County Public Safety Department is taking the concept of a ride-along to the next level.

Beginning at 7 a.m. Friday, the department will do its first "Tweet-Along," when someone will join an emergency medical services unit and tweet the experience on the county public safety department Twitter account, @MCGPublicSafety, or at twitter.com/MCGPublicSafety.

"We will actually have someone ride with an emergency crew, respond to calls with them and live-tweet updates throughout the shift as to what is going on, what they are responding to and the equipment that they are

using," said Bob Smith, public safety department director.

The department has been doing ride-alongs for years and wanted to expand it to as many people as possible, Smith said, adding they hope to do more of them in the future.

"We will rotate it throughout the public safety department," Smith said. "We will do a tweet-along with our marine rescue units, our lifeguards on the beach. We will do it with our 911 center personnel. We will even do it with animal services and send them out with our field supervisor to respond to animal calls."

The initiative is part of the county effort to increase its public education component, Smith said.

"We want to be able to teach the public when should you call 911, when should you not call 911, what happens when you call 911 when a paramedic shows up at your house, when a fire department shows up at your house so some of that insight that we'd like to be able to share with the public so they have a better idea exactly how the whole public safety system works."

Claire Aronson, Manatee County reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7024. Follow her on Twitter @Claire_Aronson.

This story was originally published February 18, 2016 at 10:47 PM with the headline "Manatee County residents to have chance to see EMS unit in action Friday ."