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I think the idea that we are not trained to handle guns comes into play here. Does a basic know how to intubate through practicing on the dummies at the station? Maybe, does that mean they can safely do it in the field? Possibly, does that mean they should? Not likely. I have grown up around guns, I can clear probably 99% of the guns you will find in the public without hesitating to figure it out. But while on duty as a paramedic/emt/ambulance driver, that is not in your job description. In my opinion after speaking to a few different cops who have POST certs, they recommend leaving in place, calling enroute to hospital and the police officer removing the weapon prior to bringing into the hospital. Most CCW are holstered and so sometimes better left in place, and if we have to remove for patient care, they suggested if police were not on scene or in the unit, to remove the holster as a whole and lock in the lock box. What you have to do is think almost worst case scenario. Yes this person is hurt, but was this gun used in a crime? If so, chain of custody plays a big role in what you do with the weapon.

Shown below, is an actual letter that was sent to a bank by an 86 year old woman. The bank manager thought it amusing enough to have it published in the New York Times. ________________________________________ Dear Sir: I am writing to thank you for bouncing my check with which I endeavored to pay my plumber last month. By my calculations, three nanoseconds must have elapsed between his presenting the check and the arrival in my account of the funds needed to honor it.. I refer, of course, to the automatic monthly deposit of my entire pension, an arrangement which, I admit, has been in place for only eight years. You are to be commended for seizing that brief window of opportunity, and also for debiting my account $30 by way of penalty for the inconvenience caused to your bank. My thankfulness springs from the manner in which this incident has caused me to rethink my errant financial ways. I noticed that whereas I personally answer your telephone calls and letters, but when I try to contact you, I am confronted by the impersonal, overcharging, pre-recorded, faceless entity which your bank has become. From now on, I, like you, choose only to deal with a flesh-and-blood person. My mortgage and loan repayments will therefore and hereafter no longer be automatic, but will arrive at your bank, by check, addressed personally and confidentially to an employee at your bank whom you must nominate. Be aware that it is an OFFENSE under the Postal Act for any other person to open such an envelope. Please find attached an Application Contract which I require your chosen employee to complete. I am sorry it runs to eight pages, but in order that I know as much about him or her as your bank knows about me, there is no alternative. Please note that all copies of his or her medical history must be countersigned by a Notary Public, and the mandatory details of his/her financial situation (income, debts, assets and liabilities) must be accompanied by documented proof. In due course, at MY convenience, I will issue your employee with a PIN number which he/she must quote in dealings with me. I regret that it cannot be shorter than 28 digits but, again, I have modeled it on the number of button presses required of me to access my account balance on your phone bank service. As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Let me level the playing field even further. When you call me, press buttons as follows: IMMEDIATELY AFTER DIALING, PRESS THE STAR (*) BUTTON FOR ENGLISH #1. To make an appointment to see me. #2. To query a missing payment. # 3. To transfer the call to my living room in case I am there. #4 To transfer the call to my bedroom in case I am sleeping #5. To transfer the call to my toilet in case I am attending to nature. #6. To transfer the call to my mobile phone if I am not at home. #7. To leave a message on my computer, a password to access my computer is required. Password will be communicated to you at a later date to that Authorized Contact mentioned earlier. #8. To return to the main menu and to listen to options 1 through 7. #9. To make a general complaint or inquiry. The contact will then be put on hold, pending the attention of my automated answering service. #10. This is a second reminder to press * for English. While this may, on occasion, involve a lengthy wait, uplifting music will play for the duration of the call. Regrettably, but again following your example, I must also levy an establishment fee to cover the setting up of this new arrangement. May I wish you a happy, if ever so slightly less prosperous New Year? Your Humble Client And remember: Don't make old People mad. We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off.

Unbelievable ... based on the FACT that TSA has never identified ONE REAL terrorist ! Millions and millions of dollars for what, for no toothpaste, for no water bottles or nail clippers ? Does this do anything for confidence for national security. I guess I missed that this 6 year old has a suicide bomb strapped to her under a t shirt . But asking to do a DRUG test is WAY over the top ... does the kid LOOK like a Crack addict ? Side bar .. my best friend is a CAPTAIN with Air Canada (official ID around his neck) that's like 4 bars on his flight uniform epaulettes and a sub contracted security moron that could NOT speak English (btw he could not have got a job at Walmart as a greeter due lack of language skills) BUT took his nail clippers away ! My friend looked at him and asked what are you fucking thinking I am going to Hi Jack my OWN airplane ? The crowd gathered watching ripped the moron security goof a new asshole .... PRICELESS. That is assault on a minor plain and simple, there was no verbal consent by patents NOR by the child hell all of us in EMS are ask for verbal consent .. and this when there IS a history of injury or illness. TSA your under Ambulance Arrest : You have the right to remain STOOPID. late edit the father was a Doctor ! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIaZMj2iUmY&feature=related

If we were still on scene, and it wasn't a time sensitive injury, I'd call PD and hand the weapon off to them. If we needed to book it for the sake of the patient's wellbeing, or if we were already en route, I'd put it in the lockbox with our narcs and advise PD to meet us at the receiving facility. On a side note, towards the end of last year I took part in some EMT training where I played an armed patient. My goal was to get the gun into the back of the ambulance without them noticing, which I managed with only one group out of four. On the down side, all of the groups failed to properly take into account that it was nearly freezing out, and they all cut my shirt off for their assessment (which inexplicably took precedence over moving my hypothermic and hypovolemic ass into the truck), and had both extended scene times and a chronic failure to put a blanket on the spine board before they put me on it. I explained to them afterwards that if I, a perfectly healthy young guy whose body was NOT riddled with bullet holes, was growing ever closer to hypothermia due to their extended scene times and failure to take the environment into account, they could bet their ass that a patient who's bleeding internally would suffer even more serious consequences from that kind of error. Hopefully it was a learning experience for them! Returning to the topic, I'm grateful to have never had any kind of weapon drawn on me yet, and to have never found one on any patient either. The closest to violence I've ever come was getting kicked and punched by an ill patient--but never fear, I suffered only a bruise to my pride.

This topic came up in my basic class and lead to a very interesting discussion. I carry off the job, and consider myself proficient with a variety of firearms. But a LEO is going to be more proficient, as well as having the proper equipment to clear the weapon. So correct, they would be the best carrier of the weapon, as weapons are expressly forbidden at local hospitals and I am not comfortable leaving someones CCW in there car to be towed. The next issue is the very atypical patient, The US Marshall. They are trained to never surrender their weapon to anyone, for any reason. With such intense training ingrained into them for years, I fear you would have a rodeo on your hands if you tried to disarm said officer if they had an altered LOC. I really don't have a good answer for this, but it was something that came up in class. Lastly, I am a bit concerned on the thought of it not being discovered on initial/rapid trauma assesment. I carry In Waistband Strong side, and it would be discovered as I checked pelvic stability, Appendix carry during ABD palpation, Or Small of back carry during log roll inspection or KED placement. Ankle Carry during extremity checks. My thoughts are if you were to miss a Weapon during the Initial Assesment/Rapid Trauma, How many other things are you going to miss. Fireman1037

Absolutely! Unfortunately, there weren't any better options back in the Stone Age, when I started. The 90 and 180-day wonder medic schools were all there was, as we were all still under the impression that Johnny and Roy knew wtf they were doing. Boy, were we wrong! By the time I went to paramedic school, I had already been an EMT and military medic for 5 years. I thought I was hot shit. I could hit any tube or IV in my sleep, and recite protocols backwards and forewards. Life was good! Then I went to school for my biology and psychology degrees. Every day of class, I found myself learning something that made me think, "Wow! I can't believe they let us practise EMS without knowing this!" I started to realise just how inadequate EMS education really was for the procedures we were practising. So, then I went to Respiratory Therapy school and quickly learned that what I had learned in medic school was not only dangerously inadequate, but much of it was just plain wrong. Again I found myself saying, "Wow! I can't believe they let us practise EMS without knowing this!" Then I went to nursing school, and as you may guess, I each day caught myself saying, "Wow! I can't believe they let us practise EMS without knowing this!" Now, again, I had at least five years of EMT practice before going advanced, yet I was still so dangerously ignorant of the physiological (and psychological) basis of our therapeutics that I am quite sure that it contributed to the death of many patients, even though I was technically -- by protocol -- doing everything right. So the question is, what did I gain in that five years of EMT practice? The answer is, very damn little. Experience without a proper foundation to build upon is worse than useless. It is counterproductive, and it retards your educational progress. When you get to paramedic school, you will notice that there exist a peculiar sub-species of student. S/he is the one who wastes everyone's time with frequent interruptions to either argue with the instructor, or to dazzle us all with war stories that are usually irrelevant and ninety-percent bullshyte. These students usually graduate (if at all) with much less knowledge than their unexperienced fellow students because they think their experience gave them such a "leg up" on education, that they cannot be convinced that they still have much more to learn. They spend a lot of time tuning out the instructor when he covers pathophysiology and other complicated topics that he is convinced you don't really have to know just to start an IV or hit a tube. To them, it's all about skills, because for the last few years, that is all he has seen of the medics' practice. He is SO wrong. There is nothing of benefit to you or your patient that is learned from basic EMT practice that cannot be learned better and faster as a paramedic student, with the only exception being driving. But I for one didn't become a paramedic just to be an ambulance driver, did you? Oh, and of course, if EMS turns out to not really be your cup of Joe, then of course there is some small chance that you might conclude that during EMT practice, which would certainly be nice to know before spending two years in college. But that rarely happens, because even unhappy EMTs usually just assume things get a lot better when you become a medic. They don't. If you just have to make a living while attending paramedic school, and you are so without skills or attributes that being an EMT-B is the only job you can get to do so, then sure, do it. We all have to eat. Just don't put off paramedic school for any time under the mistaken belief that doing so will benefit you. It won't.

It's true, shows what's important to Canadians. We need to get rid of Harper because he has no respect for democracy, and he even let private corporations decide who we are allowed to hear in our debate (separatists over hippies?) On the bright side we have two Canadian teams playing, and I hope on of them wins. Last Canadian Stanley cup was won by my home town team I do believe, the good ol' Calgary Flames. Oh well hockey over politics is a good plan, considering our only choice in politics is one of the three stooges. Plus I have hope for my medic school hockey pool

I know this is off topic and for that I am sorry. But I wanted to take a second and congratulate Fiznat on his 1,000th post. Thanks for being such a great part of the city man. Fireman1037

I believe that the primary problem to address is the budgetary concerns themselves. Schedule changes and pay cuts across the board may just be a band-aid on a broken dam. You referred to this as a County problem, Is it a fully tax supported agency? If so did they just fail multiple Levys? Is this agency the only one with 911 response? Has this agency worked to secure IFTs? Does this agency have volunteers? Have they considered a structured schedule of volunteer rotation to fill in budgetary gaps? Has the agency failed to apply for grants that would benefit the agency long term? Has the administration failed to hire someone who knows the billing and coding that gets transports paid for, that may need to be sent to a refresher? Did management just make a lot of unnecessary expenses to upgrade perfectly adequate equipment? Did someone ignore the budget? Ultimately there is a issue or mistake made by someone higher than the providers, who are most effected in the scenario as written. Perhaps its time for management to accept their mistakes and tighten their own belt. Fireman1037

One of our hospitals went on a campaign to eliminate staff infections & MRSA a few years back and tracked in the field IV starts for over a year. There results showed that alcohol only has a 3% rate of infections and those with chloroprep ampules had a 1.1 % rate at three days in. They were working at reducing IV changes when we bring the patients in with good aseptic technique start from the field and a general overall infection rate in patients in-house. Their infection control committee went to every department and made recommendations for changes to reduce the MRSA rate and other types of bacterial infections. If the patient is grossly contaminated , I will wash with sterile saline first then wipe with an alcohol wipe followed by the chloroprep ampule. It usually takes about a minute to air dry. I have seen a pt with a severe reaction to the betadine/ providine swabs , so we no longer use them.