Virginia Beach EMS will limit use of lights, sirens on responses outside of Priority 1 classification
| ‘Tip of the Hat’ to Chief Jason Stroud and the team at Virginia Beach EMS on implementing an evidence-based process change for EMS responses, limiting the use of lights and siren (HOT) responses to only potentially time-sensitive EMS calls. In 2022, 50 EMS agencies partnered with the National EMS Quality Alliance (NEMSQA) on the Lights and Siren Collaborative bringing together a 50 EMS organizations, subject-matter experts, and EMS agencies from across the US to prevent ambulance crashes by reducing the use of lights and siren (L&S) while driving. After the recent news update about Wake County, NC EMS implementing similar changes, Brian Maloney, the Operations Director for Plum EMS in Pennsylvania, shared that for the first three quarters of this calendar year, their average the use of lights/siren responding to calls is 3.4% of the time and 2.9% during transport to the hospital, without compromising patient care! |
Virginia Beach EMS will limit use of lights, sirens on responses outside of Priority 1 classification
About 25% of incidents fall under the Priority 1 designation, officials said, meaning 75% of incidents would no longer require lights or sirens.
October 31, 2025
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — This week, an operational change went into effect for Virginia Beach EMS in which first responders will limit the utilization of lights and sirens for calls under their Priority 2 designation.
The change, confirmed by Chief Jason Stroud, is amid a nationwide shift by localities to rethink whether those signals should be deployed for every single instance that requires an EMS response.
“If we’re looking at a five-mile response, the use of red lights and sirens, at most, saves us two minutes according to our driving policy. So we know for 93% of our patient population, there is no impact to patient outcome,” he told 13News Now.
According to Stroud, other localities have made similar changes, including Wake County in the Raleigh area of North Carolina.
Stroud emphasized that lights and sirens will still be utilized for critical responses and high-priority calls, or incidents designated by dispatch under Priority 1 classification.
“Breathing difficulty, reports of someone unresponsive, someone actively having a seizure or traumatic accident. Those types of things get scored at a higher acuity level, they are a Priority 1, and we’ll still use red lights or sirens for those calls,” he says.
However, over a twelve-month sample size spanning from October 1, 2024 to October 1, 2025, 25% of 911 calls were designated under Priority 1. All calls dispatched outside of that will be subject to the operational change.
“What we do know nationally is that ambulances responding with lights and sirens are twice as likely to be involved in a crash. Lights and sirens-related ambulance crashes, the injury rate is ten times higher. So over the last couple of years, as data became collected and readily available, this conversation and consensus is, the increased risk isn’t necessary for the majority of our patients or outcomes,” he said.