snoopy911

You must have been at the wrong station. There was always some sort of sex going on at mine lol (sorry I haven't posted in a while, kinda been hiding)

He is fine

I actual think those medical ID bracelets are pretty cool. I have to find one too, the skull and crossbones aren't my style but I am sure I will find something cute. As long as the ID part is clearly visible, I think they are fine. Mine as well have something cute if you have to have something permanently is my motto. I now have to walk with a cane so I got a cute one with different colored butterflies.

Dwayne! I didn't know you were in PNG! Where you at? My parents were missionaries there for 3 years!

Try Transcare in Paoli, also Good Fellowship Ambulance Club in West Chester. I will let you know if I hear of any place else that I come up with.

Wow! What an interesting story Wendy! You would think that 400 mg would be enough to take out an elephant! I guess not in all circumstances. This story is of particular interest to me, since I am about to start low dose, outpatient Ketamine infusions for the disease I have, CRPS/RSD. I am going to be infused for 4 hours a day, for 10 days. The dose is suposed to be about 80mg an hour. So I just cant imagine what 400 would be like!

The Americans with disabilities act keeps people from not hiring you based on your disability, as long as it does not effect you from doing your job. If your job requires driving at night or other things that you cannot do, that is not discrimination. For example, I have an injury and disease that prevents me from sitting , standing, or walking for very long, and I cannot lift. I cannot be hired as an EMT again because I would be unable to carry out my job. But it isn't discrimination, cause they aren't not hiring me based on my disability, but based on my inability to perform that job. You couldn't hire a deaf person as a call taker, a paralyzed person as a police officer, etc.

This is off the subject, but kinda is along the same lines. Do any of you know anything about/have heard of using ketamine infusions for treatment of RSD (reflex sympathetic dystrophy). I have been diagnosed with RSD in the last few months and my doctor was talking about low dose Ketamine infusions for treatment. I have done some research but it scares me. But at this point, I am willing to try about anything to keep my body from feeling like it is on fire 24/7. Was wondering if you guys had ever heard of using Ketamine for this?

What I typed, and what showed up was not the same thing. I even proofread it! my words got eaten! Geez that post was awful, sorry guys. I think I shouldn't do these things when i am on the high amount of pain meds i am on lol. I meant to say I make cakes for people, I make several a month. There was some other stuff that i had typed that didn't show up either, but I don't remember what I had said! ugh! sorry! I am 2 different kinds of pain meds and sometimes when i take them together it fries my brain lol.

I love to read, both fiction and non fiction, I love history, especially the world war II era. My biggest passion is baking 1-2 cakes a month, sometimes 3. Keeps me busy. I really do love cakes, I love working with fondant and sculpting. I am making a 2 tier, Cinderella Castle cake for this weekend, with 8 turrets and a cinderella and prince charming at the bottom. It is very detailed, I am already working on it! I am slow so I have to do a little at a time as I feel able. I am also a big Phillies baseball fan, and used to go to many games a season but I can't go to many now because i am unable to sit for that long and i can't do crowds because people knocking into me can set my leg off into a flair up. It is just as good to watch the games on tv. Cheaper too!

Ch, Already was approved as a candidate, but really unsure whether i want to go that route. My current pain management doctor is a huge jerk and I wouldn't want to be tethered to him anyway. I am looking into making an appointment with a pain management doctor in the city, (Philadelphia) that is great and is famous for implanting a SCS in Jerry Lewis. Hard to get an appointment with though. Was just wondering if anyone knew anything about them, I know many people on this forum have a great deal of knowledge about many different subjects. Thanks

Thank you. Sorry that i misinterpreted your words. Mostly, I just meant that I didn't mean for this thread to be some big thing to my situation. I just kind of wanted to say hi, explain why I hadn't been around and feel ya'll in. Guess I didn't succeed at that. I hijacked my own thread! lol. While I am at it, does anybody know anything about implanted spinal cord stimulators? Either from personal, familial, or patient experience.

Ch, i get what your saying. But that was kind of harsh... and Nope you can't sue out of workers comp in maryland. You can't just sue them. You get a workers comp settlement or nothing

Captain, not the same company, as this pos employer is only in md and de. Probably the same one as border though, heck I might even know him! Lol. I wouldn't wish that place on my worst enemy. I have more horror stories too. It's ridiculous the hell this place has put me through. Cap, I have tried to be diligent about saving reciepts, copays for my chiropractor, reciepts from meds when I had to pay out of pocket for all my prescriptions. And especially the info from the 800$ foot/ankle brace that I had to get becauseof the strain I put on the so called "good leg". Hoping something will come of it. Border you lnow any workers comp lawyers? feel free to pm me. I apologize for bad typing, using my phone and this teeny tiny keyboard. Haven't invested in the tap a talk thingy, is it worth it? (Yes 2.99 is an investment when you ahave no source of Income for a year and a half lol)

I definitely would have done things differently if I had to go back and change it. I was so scared to lose my job or get in trouble, but I would much rather have lost my job and had the ability to go and get a new one instead of the predicament I am in now. Trying to keep a positive attitude throughout all this though, sometimes it is difficult though!

Thank you captain and Mike for your kind words. Definitely agree with your POS comment lol. I was very bitter at first, still sometimes have the urge to slash some tires when I see their wheelchair vans dropping off students at my school. But I've been a good girl! Trying to take the lessons I have learned and move on. I just want to get my back to the point where I am able to work ANY job, even if I have to be chained to a desk for the rest of my life. Right now i have a hard time even attending school, but I am determined to not let my injury stop me from going back and finishing my education, now that I have had the opportunity to go back. Mike I have found a lawyer that I am interested in contacting, Just waiting until the holidays are over so I can get the ball rolling. Had a hard time finding a lawyer since I am in PA and it happened in MD. Believe it or not I could not find a single lawyer that had certifications in both states. I am not giving up though. This company and injury has stolen a year and a half of my life and I will get what I deserve!

Richard, I was working with their worker's comp representative for several months. I was checking in with her after each doctors appointment etc. She was the one that was in touch with the worker's comp insurance company. I wrote an incident report initially and kept in touch every time they sent me to the doctors. Like I said, i had a worker's comp claim up until December 2010 when everything hit the fan so to speak. There was never a reason given that I was denied comp. It was there in the beginning and they never denied that I got hurt on the job, they knew exactly how and why I got hurt. There was some discrepancy over whether i was to get light duty or not, and they went back and forth and no one would give me a straight answer. They kept saying they had to speak to the insurance company before they could authorize me for workers comp. The day that they told me I could go on light duty, was the day after the worker's comp doctor cleared me to go back to work , stupidly. That was the part I forgot to add. I will still having a lot of pain even though they told me I could go back, I knew I wasn't ready. They made me go do a left test, which was 300lbs not including the stretcher, and as soon as i tried to lift i felt pain. And of course the person they had me lift with was the 65 year old guy who works on the truck with the electric stretcher and said he hadn't lifted a regular stretcher in 10 years. He dropped the stretcher all the way down, and then they asked me to pick it all the way. After trying and trying, I got it part way up, I felt more of a tear in my back, and was holding back my tears. I said I couldn't do it, they said okay, go home they would call me. The next time I called, they wouldn't take my calls. That was when I hired the Lawyer. and then they wouldn't talk to me at all. They kept saying they weren't allowed to speak with me regarding light duty or any other matter, and that I should refer to my lawyer. My lawyer asked me to call and ask when I could start light duty. I called and they said they couldn't speak with me, i should ask my lawyer. And my lawyer told me to ask them. This went around and around in circles, till I got the notice of my cert in Maryland no longer being active. The attorney that I was working with was a worker's comp attorney. He was the one who told me he couldn't do anything. I believe that since there wasn't a big settlement in it for him, so he didn't really want to bother. The problem being that the incident did not happen in the same state that I live in, and the laws are vastly different. It would not have been this way if this had happened in PA. As far as doctors, I have seen several. I have pretty much exhausted all my options besides surgery, and I haven't found a doctor that will perform it on me as of yet. Please excuse any grammatical errors, as I am on pain medicine tonight and I can't think that clearly.

I have not been to this site in months. Since I am no longer working in EMS, I felt that I had less to contribute, and frankly for a long time, it made me bitter. I feel like I needed to explain my hiatus, vent, maybe even gain some advice. Let me start at the beginning. March of 2010 I got a new job that I thought was going to be great. So I thought. I got hired by a private ambulance company that had several locations in different states, to be part of their critical care transport team at the local children's hospital. Good pay, Benefits, close to my house, I was very excited. There was a lot of hoops I had to jump through to start working there. Since the hospital is very close to 4 states, they require EMT-B certifications in PA, MD, DE and NJ. Pennsylvania is my home state, and NJ is a no brainer because NJ gives automatic reciprocity to PA licenses. For MD, I had to go take a refresher course, given at the company's headquarters in Maryland. I had to pay for the course, 200$, which should have been my first clue about the company. The refresher course allowed me to apply to get my National Registry exam, that is required for DE certification. Then I went through a one day orientation, for which I did not get paid. Since I had never driven before, and the hospital requires it, I did a 30 minute video driving course, then they threw me behind the wheel on the road. I drove for about 10-15 minutes, and the instructor signed off on the driver's training papers, certifying that I had taken the course and driven for at least an hour, which I hadn't. I did not take EVOC. I was suposed to do some shifts at the corporate headquarters, to get used to driving. (Corporate was about an hour and 15 minutes from my house, on a good day.) I was picking up as many open shifts as I could, and when I asked about when I was going to be sent to the hospital, I was given a line about oh they weren't going to send me there yet and if I wanted a job, I could work at corporate. So i continued on, with several other incidents that I won't go into for sake of length. My partner and I arrived to take a patient to dialysis. The patient seemed much larger then the page had stated, 285. Anything over 300 is a bariatric patient and gets manpower and the bariatric truck. The staff said to us, are you sure you 2 ladies can get him? He weighs like 350!(He is also a quadrapilegic). I asked for manpower, and was denied, the dispatched said he was evaluated recently and is not over 300, and that I better take him. With help of the staff, we transferred him and transported to dialysis. When we weighed him, he was indeed around 350 lbs. When we got back my partner wrote up an incident report. 2 weeks later, I got a call for this patient again. Since I had so much trouble before, I notified dispatch that I wasn't sure I could lift this patient, as he was 350 lbs. They told me that wasn't true, and that since I had a different partner today, I needed to take the patient or no longer have a job, in less words. So I figured i needed to suck it up, and I would be fine. Boy was I wrong. I never would have thought that one call could change my life forever. We managed to get the patient transferred onto the stretcher, even though the bed was malfunctioning and we could not get the bed up at the proper height. I was already stretching to try to bring him over while leaning over. Then came time to get the stretcher up. On the count of 3, I lifted, and her end of the stretcher didn't go. She couldn't lift it. My mid back was already burning, but i knew we had to get the stretcher up. She apologized and said that she would be able to lift it this time. Second time was much much worse. I lifted and when her end didn't move, she let the stretcher drop down all the way to the floor. I felt a pop in my muscles and I almost burst out in tears. with the help of a nurse, we got the stretcher up partially, but not all the way. At that point the patient was freaking out at us, I did not think i had much left, so i figured we could just get the stretcher in the way it was. We lifted it up and got it in. Got to dialysis, got help to transfer the patient and I alerted my supervisor that I was hurt. I was in tears most of the way back to the office. I had to get someone to take me to Occupational health. It was all downhill from there. I have 2 herniated discs, severe muscle and nerve damage in my thoracic and lumbar regions, and down my right leg. I have almost constant muscle spasms, and nerve pain in my leg. The incident was August 17th, 2010. The company kept going back and forth whether I could do light duty or not, and from August to December I was not offered light duty or being paid for lost time, although I was being seen by their workers comp doctor. I contacted a lawyer and that day, my workers comp case was closed. I could not find out why, or what, but it was denied. 16 months later, I am unable to work or do any job due to the back injuries and my inability to sit for more then a few minutes without pain. I have been unable to reopen my claim, and have not received a cent. The lawyer told me that the company knew how to play the system, and there wasn't much he could do. I received a letter in the mail informing me that I no longer had a EMS certification in Maryland, due to no affiliation with a company. The reason was given as termination from the company. I had no idea. I have no clue where to go from here... I have had numerous medical treatments, injections, 4 sets of physical therapy, I see a chiropractor, nothing helps. I have no idea what my recourse is from here. Does anybody have any ideas on my situation. Sorry for the long, drawn out post, I needed to vent!!!

I believe that they had determined no one was in the car before they decided to turn back. At least that is what I had heard on one of the other local news stations. Although this whole situation raises some red flags, I am not quick to judge, as there are many things left unsaid, as Mike stated. I think we would need a lot more information before we could make a determination.

Where do you live now? I know that there are some spots open at Crozer in Delco(Delaware County) I would look into that. You rotate through all the stations that Crozer has medics at, which will put you in the City of Chester quite often, so you get the big city feel, minus the PFD bull. That would be my reccomendation. I am not sure that PFD even went ahead with their plan to put another class through the academy in September, due to extreme budget cuts in the city. I am not 100% on that though, as that was heard through the grape vine, and i am not directly involved with EMS in delco right now, due to an injury. I finally am coming back to the forums. Good luck in your search and if you want any more info, feel free to PM me.

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=8333083 What's everyone's take on this story? RIP EMT Michael Kenwood, Rest Easy brother

There so IS a way to fold a fitted sheet! it would be almost impossible to tell you though. I would have to show you. Now nobody come knocking down my door asking for sheet folding lessons. And Annie, it has to be folded right or it wont fit in the closet! lol

Dwayne, my mouth dropped open at your excellent, well thought, intelligent post. But I digress. I have worked both at a private service, and a hospital based EMS system. At the private service, I worked with one lesbian woman, and one gay man. At the Hospital based system, I can name at least 6 gay or lesbian providers, and those are only ones that I know of. (Not to say there aren't a ton more that I didn't know.) One of them was a lieutenant and went on to become assistant chief. I hate generalizations. To say that "gays" are relegated to 2nd tier services, and have no chance for advancement, is crap. It is like saying all white people are racist, or all black people are criminals. Do either of these statements have any merit? Not at all. You can't paint every person with the same brush. I think that sometimes people "create" discrimination because they are not getting what they want. Every situation is different. I could say that as a woman in EMS, I get stuck with "bad" jobs, and I can't advance. Is that really the case? Am I really qualified for other positions? Is there jobs available? How many other people are competing for those positions? I could be bitter that I did not receive one of those jobs and say that I did not get the position because I was a woman, my race, weight, sexuality etc. But is it discrimination or just my perception of the situation?

Although I agree that there needs to be tighter methods for controlling abuse of pain medicine, I do not thinkthat this is the solution. In your example, Happiness, I cannot see how a contract would have helped. I may have had a different opinion if you have asked me this a year ago. (I do not remember if I have shared this in here, but I have gone back to school for drug and alcohol counseling/social work) But since beginning this educational journey I have embarked on, I have learned a lot. In the case given, I do not believe that a contract would have helped. Someone who is addicted to a narcotic (or any drug) is not going to think about a piece of paper when they need their fix. Also, although I agree with you that the physician should have worked with the patient to find other means to pain relief, counseling, etc, but methadone is NOT the answer. Methadone can be more addictive then heroin. In my short time of experience in the drug and alcohol field, I have met several patients and heard many stories about people who went on methadone to get off of opiates, and ended up addicted to methadone. It can be useful in some situations, but I believe it is greatly misused. I do, however, see that it could potentially put safegaurds in place to protect physicians from liability, but I cannot see it making on impact on people that are abusing pain medicine. When you are addicted, you really don't have any rationals when it comes to getting your "fix". Nothing will stop them from buying clean urine to pass a drug test, and faking other documents. You don't think about possible consequences or getting in trouble.

Very well said DocHarris! This guy needs to check his motivation and priorities, now! Before anyone gets hurt. How ironic is it that he neglected his own children to care for someone else? I hope he learns his lesson. Thank God the children were ok. You can't take your eyes off a 2 year old for 10 seconds let alone to leave the house for the length of a call! People like that don't deserve to have the privilege of a parent.