CBEMT

It'd be a valid point if he'd actually done anything this year.

Looks like TSA needs a field office in Nigeria.

You MIGHT be able to pull off 63k at one of the better-paid fire departments up here with a hefty amount of overtime, but I wouldn't expect much in the way of progressive or patient-focused care. Especially at one of the large departments, many of whom don't run transport EMS anyway (ie Boston, Worcester, Hartford, Springfield, New Bedford, Nashua). The ones that do most likely aren't hiring anytime soon due to the economy- they can barely hang on to the people they have everytime the civilian management starts swinging the budget axe. CT has a few third-services such as New Britian EMS; in Massachusetts, UMass EMS in Worcester just hired recently so I wouldn't expect them to have any openings, New Bedford EMS is just barely avoiding more layoffs. Fall River FD "owns" EMS but uses single-role non-FF providers, however they're in a shaky financial position and wouldn't be hiring. Nobody in RI is hiring or likely will be. I know very little about EMS in Maine, Vermont, or NY. Depending how far south you're willing to stop, I know Delaware ALS is county-based and fairly progressive within the model (ALS intercepting BLS), you might have some luck there. Good luck. You're gonna need it.

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Partner had someone spray his face down after a possible exposure, eyes and mouth both. He had no complaints.

Do you have us confused with Firehouse.com?

I think the union president has enough sense to tell that when you're this wrong, it doesn't do the local any good to go to war with the city over this. They'll still lose, and look bad doing it. I have no doubt he'll make sure they get all the rights they're entitled to in the disciplinary process, and then, as Richard said, hold the door for them. If I was a member of that union, I'd want them to do nothing less for my collegues. And ABSOLUTELY nothing more.

Normally I'd agree, but given that Richard just pointed out an even worse offense committed by an NYC EMS crew before the FDNY ever got involved, I'd say its not really fair to tie this one to FDNY owning the municipal EMS in their city. Especially since FDNY*EMS crews aren't firefighters and FDNY firefighters aren't EMS.

Since they're claiming cancer after 20 years of walking around fire scenes without airpacks on as "LODD," it's hardly surprising to see a guy who gets a rash after a shift of EMS calls and dies get the full treatment.

1-919-684-4DAN

And so begins another takeover.... ever so slowly......

Doesn't sound like an intersection a sprinter would want to cross, nevermind a 78 year-old woman with a walker. I'll bet it's hardly the first time FDNY has gone there for a pedestrian struck, unfortunately this time it happened to be them that did the striking.

Ok, gotcha. Yes and no. Every shift in the PICU has at least one transport-qualified nurse, and an MD (ER resident on Peds rotation) that's on call. They have to go. The doc might be in-house, or at home. So we on the ambulance end sometimes have inexperienced crews running L+S to the hospital to pick up the team, and end up waiting half an hour for the doc to show up. (They usually learn after that.) If it sounds like Respiratory might be needed, the RT on duty is paged, but has the option of saying no. And they often will, especially because transports are paid at a flat rate, and don't count towards either the RN or the RT weekly hours- they actually badge out on the time clock on the way to the truck. Meaning many an RN/RT have lost money because the 3 hour transport didn't count towards their overtime, and the flat rate didn't match what they would have made. Sometimes we'd end up on back to back transports, which only made it worse. Unfortunately, the feeling seems to be that although transports requests are common, there isn't enough demand to warrant a full-time dedicated team. In fact, I heard that the MD slot may be getting cut for cost considerations. The OB/Gyn hospital runs the NICU team; they're always NR/MD/RT. Their staffing situation seems similar, but I don't know as many of the particulars.

I used to be that crew- my private had the transport contract for the PICU team, only difference was it had to be an ALS crew- their monitors didn't have defib capability, so they wanted someone who knew how to work the monitor on the truck. Plus state protocol required an ALS provider onboard any ambulance being used for SCT. Did anyone talk to the parents about transport issues before leaving? Our transport nurse would always take the parents aside and make it clear that they were to take their time and not follow the truck. They were given printed directions to the destination hospital and told of the dangers involved in following the truck. If it would keep them both calm and rational, they'd offer to take one of them with us in the front of the truck (I wasn't crazy about that either, but it wasn't my decision). I know what the EMT did on that call was wrong, but I also have a hard time pinning two deaths on him when it was their decision to follow the truck through the light. L+S was always "up to the team," which meant the nurse- the MD onboard was a resident on rotation, and thus hadn't been on very many transports, and wouldn't be before it was someone else's turn. And since many RTs refused transport runs unless the patient was already on a vent, they didn't have the experience either. So sometimes we used the lights, and sometimes not. What got aggravating was when we were asked to use the lights "just to get through the red lights." We tried explaining that it didn't work like that, but usually to no avail.

Come on, Richard. I agree with the sentiment, but are you telling me FDNY BLS trucks sit in Manhatten traffic with tib-fib fractures?

I thought that was Jersey?

Did they give you the right room? With sheets on the bed and everything? We had to make a few trips up and down the stairs before we got everything straightened out last year.

Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch.

Oh, I bet it was VERY crappy.....

So you were out of work with a back injury, and THEN became a firefighter? As if that doesn't involve your back at all? Something stinks here, and it isn't just the firehouse bathroom.

1 opportunity, 1 tube placed. No requirements.

No, the real joke is that you dug up a 2 year-old thread to say almost nothing that hadn't already been said about it.

My understanding is Boston Fire is auto-dispatched to unresponsives, chest pains, major traumas... basically anything that sounds like it might be or turn into a cardiac arrest, basically for the purpose of putting CPR-trained personnel and an AED onscene as quickly as possible. They are not ALS-equipped. Anybody who is a paramedic prior to being hired as a Boston firefighter is not authorized to practice as such. The BEMS BLS truck would of course have had an AED. I mean, duh. Since the call was coded incorrectly (or so it would SEEM from the information at hand), the dispatch was a BLS ambulance, who obviously upgraded the call to ALS once they arrived. Is there a protocol for a BFD response upon discovery of a cardiac arrest with a BEMS unit already onscene? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. We don't know this person's medical history, overall physical condition, or down time. A 4.5 minute response for an AED-equipped vehicle is pretty good by any standard, and with CPR in progress prior to THEIR arrival, this guy already had a better shot at survival than 80+% of SCA victims, with or without the heroes of Boston Fire. And he's still alive, which is better than 90+% of all SCA victims can say. For all of the pontificating that the BFD and their union will throw around about being shut out of a critical call and how this "proves" that BFD should be running Boston's EMS (*cough*intotheground*cough*), just that fact tells me that BEMS doesn't have it as wrong as they'll be made out to. Or, since you know ALS is enroute, you could focus on CPR, defib, and BLS airway management to give the best possible chance at survival. Stopping CPR to package and carry (could have very easily been on the second or third floor) and then racing off to the hospital with one EMT in the eback would have been putting a bullet in this guy.

Oh, what a shock. *yawn*