Emergency Response

Responding to an Emergency

When an emergency occurs on campus, an individual should dial Safety and Security at x5555 from a campus phone or (315) 229-5555 from a cell phone to reach the St. Lawrence University Safety & Security Dispatch Center. The dispatcher will take the needed information, such as the location of the emergency, the type of emergency (medical, fire, threat, etc), age and gender of the patient if medically related, and dispatches the appropriate resources (Security Officers, Canton Police, Canton Fire, SLU EMS, etc).

Should a medical emergency be phoned into our Dispatch Center, our Dispatcher will contact our on-call Duty Crew. Our Duty Crew will then respond both in our vehicle and on foot, with an average response time of less than three minutes.

If the description of the call fits a particular scenario, our Dispatcher will also request that additional resources, such as a full ambulance and Advanced Life Support, to assist the Duty Crew. Canton Rescue, where many of our providers are also members, provides these services in most cases. It is not uncommon for the responding ambulance and ALS crew to be compromised partially or even fully of off-duty SLU EMS personnel.

Most patients requiring transport are taken to Canton-Potsdam Hospital, located twelve miles from St. Lawrence's campus. Canton Rescue does, however, transport to Ogdensburg’s Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center and Gouverneur’s EJ Noble Medical Center on a regular basis if a patient should request it.

If a patient is deemed particularly unstable, they are often transferred by either ground or air ambulance to the University Hospital in Syracuse, NY or to Fletcher Allen Hospital in Burlington, Vermont. In rare instances, and under certain circumstances, SLU EMS and/or Canton Rescue may request air ambulance helicopters to transport critically injured patients directly to these locations.

What Happens If I Call 9-1-1?

If you call 9-1-1 directly from a St. Lawrence University telephone, the 9-1-1 Dispatcher will obtain the same information our Dispatchers are trained to take down. They will then dispatch Canton Rescue as well as SLU EMS.

Calling 9-1-1 instead of SLU Safety and Security does not speed up the response of our personnel and in some cases may actually delay response times because it adds extra steps, and thus extra seconds, into the dispatching process.

For information regarding Hospital Transportation, please click here.