Just Plain Ruff

nothing like learning from a 24 year old textbook. That teacher you are learning from must be on the cutting edge of EMS edumacation. I feel for you man, a nice face to face would be nice but I'm going to assume that you will get no-where with her. She does know that newer books have been published, they are even in color including some special full color diagrams. right???? but if you go to her and she rebuff's you then you go higher. You probably won't get anywhere with her or higher up though. PM me if you need help.

What's really sad is that Joeseph is driving and lone is the one on the back.

washing hands, wearing masks, masking my patients, covering my patients infectious wounds with a dressing. making patients stop vomiting with Zofran so they won't vomit in my ambulance. Just the general Infection control precautions - not much more you can do.

Damn you and your Chemistry questions - Damn you. Minus 1 for making me think today

If you are running on 2 hours sleep then I'm surprised you aren't seeing (sic) other things than just faces in the shrubbery. This just goes to prove your mental instability ha ha Just kidding I don't see faces in the dark, I have seen funny shapes but I chalk it up to just tricks of the light If the faces start to talk to you then you need to seek professional help. I hear Spenac has some appointments open.

Hey CH any chance of giving us a little tutorial about the differences between keeping a patient light and one heavily sedated. I'm used to snowing them with little regard to keeping them light, I want a patient where my ventillator can do it's job rather than a patient who might be fighting the vent with minimal sedation.

No sensors if the garage door is 20 years old or so. But I'm sure she was going for those prescription drugs or was she up to no good? The world will never know. Just like the number of licks to get to the center of a tootsie pop.

So true CHBARE, but unfortunately etomidate and ketamine are found in no services near where I work. The only service that would have the two listed are the flight services. I would love to have both of those agents in my arsenal but I don't see that happening. Later.

Modifying ambulances to accomodate you - don't buy it. Uniforms - ok I'll buy that. But seriously, if you are morbidly obese just how big are you? I'm around 290 and I have ahard time doing some things but I have no problems doing my job. My weight is centered on my greater omentum and everywhere else is toned and strong. It's the belly fat I have a problem with. Can I do cpr without problems - yep can I carry a 200 pound patient down 10 flights of stairs - yes but with difficulty as well as everyone else carrying that 200# down. Can I walk 2-3 miles off road to get to apatient while carrying a bag, oxy tank, and monitor - yep can do and did a couple of weeks ago Do I need my ambulance modified to fit my fat ass - nope there's plenty of room for me You are either so large that you can't fit in the front seat or you are a troll who comes here to stir shit. I'm on the fence on this one.

Spoken like someone who speaks from experience All true what Crotch says our service carries morphine fentanyl toradol acetaminophen motrin valium versed If fentanyl doesn't work - morphine does and usually vice versa. I have a friend who works for a service and they don't carry narcs due to mismanagement of those said narcs in the past. Sucks to be in pain in their system. They just got narcs after a 5 year absence.

I agree that they should have looked but that didn't happen and there apparantly was no policy to do such a thing for that service. Sure the kid could be there but let me put it another way. You are on scene, you and your partner are in the ambulance. Partner in back and you in drivers seat. AT the time you got in the ambulance there was no one in front of your ambulance. Now you drive away and Wham you hit a kid. Are you saying that you should have someone always check in front of you whenever you go forward? What if there is no-one there as an adult to watch your front end. So now you have run over a kid who wasn't there when you got in the ambulance and you have killed or seriously injured the kid. Do you call for your own termination? You better because you are calling for these drivers termination. Granted they should have looked when they opened the door but unless they were in the habit of doing so I bet it was second nature to just open the door and drive out. Should policies be changed - yes Will they - sounds like they have been. Should these guys be fired - NOPE should they get drivers training - yep and the entire department should get remedial training. Is this an accident - yep was it avoidable - yep

Thanks for your concern pal. Gosh, I guess I never really appreciated the stories behind some "Nut jobs". This has shaken me badly and I will try to turn it into a psitive learning experiance. I guess I needed a none involved point of view to help me see and move on. Thanks mac !

Phil, I think you are wrong. By all accounts this person was lying directly in front of the ambulance on the ground. I can truly see that when they got in the ambulance they opened the door and drove out. Do they need to be disciplined, I don't think so. Do they need remedial drivers training yes. This is where we are going to have to agree to disagree.

If this is indeed true, it's just so sad. unfortunately, I'll bet that there was more going on with your partner than you realized and that he didn't just "Snap". So your buddy wasn't really the "nut job" you thought right? Him being your buddy, did it change your perception of "nut job"

Vent the comments I wrote were not meant towards you. Was this something that can be learned from - oh yes indeedee But for others to call for their heads and those in the article just shows how intolerant we as an industry are. Train them to check better, but this COULD have been any of us.

HOLY SHITE BATMAN, The intolerance of those on this forum is just incredible. The holier than thou attitude of those on this forum borders or schizophrenia. It's replies like this that make me ashamed to be a member of this forum. I wake up to this comment on what I consider to be a tragic accident. Sure, let's call for discipline but to drum these two guys out of EMS for getting in their ambulance, opening the door and then driving out when by all accounts the guy was lying in front of the ambulance door. People in glass houses. The next time you make any type of honest mistake I'll be sure to call for your heads and make sure you are drummed out of the service.

I just went out to our ambulance and got in it, opened the garage door and there is no way that you can see what is directly in front of the ambulance on the ground. Anyone who says different is lying. I will from here on out open the door and look at the ground before I get in the ambulance. In all fairness to the medics in question, I'll bet that they and everyone else in their department do the same thing, get in, open the door and go out. I'm sure that has changed since the accident. I would also place a bet that 90% of the people here before this incident also got in their truck and just went without looking in front on the ground. How many will say they changed their process? and how many here just say that they will change their process and go back to status quo. To call for the heads of the medics or call for strict discipline is just out of line and an absurd comment.

Damn, who did you piss off to get a -14 rep? Sure sounds like someone doesn't like you.

No I think the comparisons are valid. what I was comparing the shows to was to drive home the point that we know that the show sucks and we know better but does that really matter to hollywood? I think not. Yes the shows I listed were parody's but what if they weren't? Would the outrage be there like the outrage is here. One other thing, we see bad and incorrect medicine in our field perpetrated by actual providers and where is the outrage in that. We all have on this forum cried out when someone sully's the good name of EMS but unfortunately there are bad providers everywhere and we need to weed them out. What we need to do instead of gripe about a television show that will not make it to the end of the season, we need to grasp this opportunity to educate the public as to what we really do. The public doesn't care that we sit around in our ambulances for hours waiting for the call that may or may not come, they care about seeing the excitement of the mass casualty incident. They don't care that we hold granny's hand while she takes her last breath or holds uncle bob's hand during a transfer from the nursing home to the hospital or vice versa. The public wants to see in a show like this the explosions, the death defying acts of that awesome helicopter pilot and the heroics of Rabbit saving that kids life by doing a cric. They don't give a rats ass as to the realisticness of the show. What we should be looking at what we personally can do to further this profession not how outraged we are over a television show that won't be remembered except by those on here.

I had an opportunity to go to a EMS rally in Poland. It fell through at the last minute but it sounded really fun. Had I had a corporate sponsor I could have gone. But it all fell through so I didn't get to go.

The response from the pro vaccination people would be that you already had the flu and also already had swine flu it just took till today to get the full blown symptoms.

One more thing from the Sidelines There are a good many people angered by this show. Let me ask this. Do you think that there was an outcry when that Garbage collector movie with Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez was playing at the movies. Was there outrage by garbage collectors? Was their outrage by the police officers regarding the police acadamy movies? Was their outrage when Charlie Sheen played the pilot in those stupid military movies? Was their outrage when Ben Stiller put out that piece of garbage just recently about the military? What about the submarine movie with Kelsey Grammar and Rob Schneider? was their outrage by the firefighters when Roxanne came out and showed the firefighters in that small town looking like total idiots? I don't remember if there was. Every profession has been butchered by hollywood and it's all to make a buck. And there was hardly any outrage when the parody's of the serial killers were shown in Scary Movie 1, 2 and 47. And then who can forget the portrayal of male gigilos in Bruce Bigalow, Male Gigalo. I didn't hear anyone from the male gigilo community expressing hatred over Bigalow. Are we the only ones who were outraged by our being portrayed wrong?

I don't think he needed to man up to anything. He really wasn't the true advisor to the show. It sounds like he was placed in a position of a rock and a hard place, the mayor said do it and they did. The producers of the show had no intention of making this show to be realistic to the EMS communities standards. What else is new. I mean reality shows which were supposed to be based in reality when they started have become nothing more than trash tv. When you have viewers who make Jerry Springer a top draw at all hours of the day, you have shows like Big Brother, Dancing with the Stars (I do like this show cause the women are HOT), The worlds biggest loser and many other shows, is it really a offense to our community in EMS that the show Trauma stretches the truth and reality???? I choose not to watch the show, I will re-watch the Pilot episode to address the questions he asked me to look at but I will not continue to watch the show after I re-view the pilot. Don't we have better and bigger things out there to worry about than a stupid television show. I can think of two things we should address ASAP Educational requirements of our industry Emergency Vehicle accidents Trauma is on it's way out, there will be another crap show to take it's place in the next season or two and we can have this discussion again when that new show comes on.

With a new baby in the house I as well will be getting both the N1H1 vaccine and the pneumonia vaccine from my doc's office. Too much risk for my little baby.

How does your service or the services in your area deal with Line of Duty Deaths? I know that my service has not had a line of duty death in at least 18 years but we have had people from our hospital die. The family of the deceased are responsible for funerals on that end and whoever from our department can go, goes. AS for LODD - MAST ambulance a number of years ago had a line of duty death of two members of it's service and they I believe had a pretty nice ceremony. I also attended a former preceptor at MAST who died suddenly and we had the procession of hundreds of paramedics, firefighters, emt's and nurses and docs from all over the region in the procession. KCFD had 6 firefighters killed many years ago in an arson explosion and there were about 1500 people in attendance for that funeral. So I can't say how they would handle a line of duty death for one of our staff members but I don't think it would be like the KCFD or MAST get ups.