Just Plain Ruff

WAIT WAIT WAIT The quoting is messed up. I am not the one who is asking this question I'd be curious as to the opinions of the group - brand new paramedic - should they be going out and getting their CCEMTP or wait to get some experience under their belts? That question was first posed by Runswithneedles. The quotes somewhere along the lines got crossed.. Please refer to the first post of this thread.

No the original discussion point was not that the scenario so to speak was that you worked at a governmental agency but that was not made clear. My circumstance was that I was working for a private entity. So no government involved except for the law enforcement and fire department which was simply there doing a washdown of the fluids from the cars. My crew were working in a non-governmental capacity. So I think we've gone far enough on the original topic so let's take this one step further. Say you are the patient, You are the walking wounded and you are being photographed by someone. You have a couple of gashes on your head, you've been examined by the ems crew and you've signed a refusal. The guy is still snapping pictures of you. This is you personally. Not your patient. Not your family member. It's you. Do you have a issue with someone taking photographs of you in your moment of let's say weakness or less than say stellar moment? Do you have an issue with someone photographing you? Do you allow it to happen or do you do something about it? Same rules go here. We have established that we have no right to privacy in public as set aside by the Supreme court. What are your responses to the photographer? Keep in mind AK's request about violence and how you would respond to this photographer. This is no longer on the job. The sky's the limit on your response. Or has this thread gone on long enough? I'm curious as to what responses will be. I for one don't think that anyone should be able to take pictures of me for any reason and I'm probably going to try to go and get the camera and get my pictures deleted. There is no reason why this guy needs a picture of me if he doesn't know me. So I'll probably go after the camera. And since I have a head injury I can claim that the head injury caused my judgement to be impaired. It probably won't hold up in court and I'll pay a fine and pay to replace the guys phone if his phone is damaged or destroyed in the ensuing struggle. But that's just what I might do, unless faced with the situation I won't know for sure.

I would not engage in violence to protect the privacy of my patient. No patient is worth my life anc maybe by taking that guys phone that could have been construed as violent but I dont think so. AK, I have always been a privacy advocate. The rebel in me would like to level the guy taking picture, then take his camera and stomp on it and shove it down his throat but the reasonable person in me knows that its improper to do all that. Especially in florida with floridas stand your ground law, its insane to fet in a fight over some asshole taking pictures of your patient. I think the lesson learned here in this entire scenario is to cover your patient to head off this exact type of situation. Would I take the phone again? Probably not, but who knows. Situation by situation but you have to choose you battles wisely. This has been a great thread. Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

Back up where in the constitution it says specifically that his taking pictures is allowed. Specifics my friend. I just looked it up and it aint there. As for my father dying to defend the constitution, you seem to know a lot about my family but you should really keep your mouth shut. And for telling me to leave your country, I believe I was here first since im a tad bit older than you, so technically, this is My country you little whippersnapper so if you would like to try to make me leave "your" country, then come on down to Raymore Missouri and try and you will find that it wont be that easy. Would I take the guys phone again, probably not, it was a spur of the moment thing but now that micsusi or whatever his name is has duuuuuly chastised me and told me to leave the country, I will forever remember that by taking the camera and deleting the photos made this a violation of that guys first amendment rights and for that my fellow EMTCITIERS I must atone and move to Mazurkistan to start my life anew. Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

Yeah, Hep is much scarier, just ask one of my friends with a liver destroyed by Hep c. I'll bet he'd say he'd rather have TB or Nec fAc over End STage liver failure any day of the week.

My first priority is my family, unfortunately my job takes me 1100 or so miles away from my family on a weekly basis so my family is well able to shelter in place until I can make it back. So if a big event happens, I'm taking whatever means it takes to get home. Be it walking or the rental car (avis be damned) and going home. My client will understand. If not then they can always find a new consultant. By the time I get home, my family should have activated their full emergency plan we have in place, and NO I won't reveal that here.

I agree JP. Let's take the fenced yard example. My grandparents before their deaths lived behind a school playground. Their backyard at one time was unfenced. When adults came to play baseball or softball they would sometimes hit the ball over into my grandparents yard. Without the fence they would just walk into the yard and get the ball. NO harm no foul to my grandparents. Made no difference to the family until a couple of people trampled my grandparents prized strawberries and garden. We then put up a fence. Softballs and baseballs would still come into the yard but attitudes and courtesies immediately changed. The players would make trips around the block and knock on my grandparents door and tell them their ball was in the yard. My grandfather would walk them to the ball and then let them out the back gate. Or if he was in the backyard would let them retrieve their ball. Amazing what a fence would do. Just an anecdote. Adds nothing to this discussion except fodder to JP's last post.

Well AK, you will remember I asked to see the guys phone, and he handed it right over to me, no questions asked, so he apparantly did not feel threatened. So had you have shot me then it would have been you in prison and not me. But unfortunately I'd be dead so thank God that didn't happen. There was no threat to the guy there, I simply asked to see his phone. I didn't say "Give me your phone" or anything demanding like that. I just said "Can I see your phone". If he took it as a threat then that was his interpretation of the question I asked. Had he have not given me his phone then I'd have let it go. I would have asked him to delete the photos that he took but I know good and well that anyone can take photos anywhere of anyone out there. That we don't have a expectation of any sort of privacy which I find unfortunate. But I have been photographed in public before and just turn the tables and start to take photographs of the person taking the photographs. It unnerves them as well and they usually stop taking photos and go away. Anywho, I think this thread was a good one. I've never had one of my threads go longer than 2 pages. It's a first for me.

Ok, this was a true to life situation about 5 years ago. Had a jerk off who I asked to stop at a scene. I was doing some FTO ride along time. I was merely an observer. We had plenty of help. I had asked the guy twice to stop taking pictures. We were actually waiting on the 3rd ambulance to arrive to take the patient. She was not naked but she was back boarded on the ground. No blankets to use for privacy. So after asking the deputy to stop the guy and he seemed rather disinterested, I walked over the third time as the 3rd ambulance arrived and said I wanted to talk to him. He was all ears. I asked if I could see his phone. He said "sure". I then put his phone in my pocket and said "you can get your phone back at my office tomorrow" and then walked away. Leaving a very dumbfounded guy on the side of the road when our ambulance left for a 45 minute ride to a hospital. I found the pictures that he took, there were over 100 of them with close up facial pictures and pictures of the open femur fracture and of all the victims not just my patient and the other patients were completely stripped. I deleted them. I did nothing else to the guys phone. I returned to headquarters and turned the phone into the supervisor along with an incident report. They had already received a in person visit from the very irate phone owner who was threatening pressing charges for theft but it never got that far. I got a 24 hour suspension which I gladly served. My boss actually told the guy and several staff members attested to hearing him tell the guy this that if it was his daughter or family member that he was taking pictures of, he would have gotten his phne back in pieces no bigger than grains of sand and he better get out of the office before that became a reality. but I still had a unpaid forced day off. I spent it at the lake.

Condolences to the Ethans immediate family as well as his huge extended family go out from the Ruff's in Raymore MO. Sad day

Ok, you are the third member of a crew that is taking care of a patient who is a victim of a MVA, She's not hurt too badly but you and your crew have exposed her pretty fully. There's this bystander snapping pictures of you working the scene and also of this naked woman. You've asked him to stop taking pictures. There is one officer on scene and you've asked him to deal with the bystander yet he refuses to do so. How do you deal with this pesky bystander and his cell phone? I had just this situation on one of my last EMS calls before I hung up my shingle.

My thoughts are this, when in doubt expose. Multi system trauma patients almost always equal naked trauma patient but they nearly always will arrive in the ER covered with some sort of sheet. It's not right to wheel them in through the ER door totally naked unless you are doing CPR on them. Use common sense. As for other patients, once you have exposed and evaluated the area, then by all means cover them because you have removed their source of warmth even on a hot day. Imagine a airconditioner on a naked or nearly naked body with cold IV fluids running in, you can get cold quickly. Expose, look, examine, cover, repeat on other part of body. And remember this cardinal rule, If you were the patient, think about how you would like to be treated in the same situation by you as a medic or emt!!!!!

Well she's doing just dandy. The cardiologist told us that the hole in the atrium wall had nothing to do with her episode. Relief. No answers on why she did what she did. So, we are doing a month long holter monitor. She has a EEG scheduled for next thursday. She will have an apnea monitor for nights till she turns 1. She has not had a repeat episode. Other than that, all's good.

Or that he was faking, that would have explained it all too. Let's not forget the trees or the zebra and try not to overanalyze.

Dutifully chastised Croaker. True, what I find tasteless another man or woman may find completely fine and dandy. And I have no idea who makes the decision what is obscenity. I have my marker, and you have yours. But I am damned sure that I don't want 435 people in congress and another 100 who are sitting in the senate and the other 9 who wear the robes and the final 1 who is the president defining for me what is obscene but I think that's who will define it. But then again, someone has to define it and for my family, that's person is me and my wife but we won't get into that discussion. Keep em hidden when working. Show em off when not.

Cause Mike will get you!!!!! Not this Mike, the other Mike.

But didn't that Lincoln die of a big hole in the head and not Marfans?

Yep you are gonna die. how's that for messin with your line of thought Beibs?

I had a feeling that was the answer that you were going to give. Saving templates is a good idea. Consistency is key.

Yeah, I had a service telling me that I had to say in my narrative "secured with 3 straps and cot secured to ambulance. Total mileage 33.34 miles"