Just Plain Ruff

Actually if you work for one of those fire the employee first and ask questions later services, if you hurt the wrong persons feelings then you may very well be out of a job. If they are senile, they sometimes do remember the smallest things and keep pushing it. My grandmother has alzheimers and she forgets things but the things she remembers is how she was treated by the ambulance crews, what color the nurses were, and other things that we would take for granted but she does remember. So don't be so quick to judge that someone who is "Senile" will not remember what you do to them, they will and they will continue to bring it up over and over again. I witnessed my grandmother doing that when she was admitted last week for pneumonia. Senile or alzhiemers or not, it's amazing what she remembers. Be careful by making such a blanket statement, it often times bites you in the butt.

It's the medics ultimate responsibility and his licensure on line. You can suggest C-spine but if the medic decides no c-spine then let him lie in his own decisions. In the overall scheme of things, more than likely there is no spinal damage but until we are all supermen with x-ray vision and trained to read x-ray's better part of valor is to c-spine the guy and treat him according to your protocols.

Acquiring the 12 lead is one thing but the OP made it seem like they were getting them and reading them. But I digress. If no telemetry or transmitting capability then it's good as a baseline for the doc to see but not much else.

I'm gonna make him walk his sorry butt over to my ambulance. If he had the unmitigated gall to get out of the car on his own, thereby preventing me from playing with my extrication tools then he can walk his sorry ass to the ambulance. As a matter of fact, he can start his own IV and decompress his own freaking chest. but I digress

nice but tell me, what are you able to do with the 12 lead except notify your hospital that you are bringing a stemi in or whatever?m edit:::: I was just on the west virginia protocols from your state ems bureau and I didn't find anywhere in the protocols 6000 that you can do a 12 lead. here is the website that I looked at. they were updated for 2008 if I read correctly. http://www.wvoems.org/media/37713/6000%20protocols.pdf I did two searches one search for 12 lead and then a 2nd search for EKG and each of those turned up 0 (zero) results. I'd be curious if there are other places that have the use of 12 leads listed out. If you can enlighten me or others on this I'd be appreciative.

Now that's good stuff there. I'm gonna drag her over to oak street and you can pick her up there. Pretty quick thinking. Are we sure the education system failed him, at least he thought fast enough to take her to Oak street.

If you work for a hospital based ambulance you do not qualify for any grants that I have found. Any grant I've found have been reserved mainly for fire departments. Some grants for private EMS agencies but they are few and far between.

Ok, here's my perspective and my story. About a year or so ago my wife and I found out we were pregnant, (well she was at least). All was well in the pregnancy until about week 8 when the docs told us there was a small hemmorhage in the placenta but the pregnancy should go on without problems. At week 17 my wife said something had changed. We went to the doc's office and the baby had passed away some time within the past 2 days. We induced labor the following day. We delivered a 17 week gestation stillborn little boy. He had fingers, he had toes, a tongue, eyes, mouth, nose, big head and a little penis(had to put that in) This was in all realities is a human being. But some say he wasn't(those on the pro-abortion lobby). One of the darkest times in my life, one that I hope never to go through again. If you go aborting babies like this one then you are definately aborting human beings and killing them. There is no way around it. Just because the baby cannot survive out of the womb does not make it a non-entity. My views are clear, my views are my own yet they are what they are. We adopted our son and thank God that the birth mother did not choose abortion. A very very close friend of mine summed abortion up in a couple of sentences and I know that he would not have a issue with me relaying what he says. He says it this way. Abortion is killing a human being. When he goes in front of God and asks him why there is no cure for cancer God may say "There was a cure for cancer, but that person who would have developed the cure for cancer was aborted on January 23, 2006" Then he asks "Why was there no cure for MS or parkinsons, and is told the same thing, There was going to be but she was aborted on March 18, 1976" I know that this devolves this argument but what if he's right?

question between transport by ground versus air Based on patient presentation ST elevation in leads V1-V4 Elevated Blood Sugar slight facial droop to right side of face BP of 70/40 Would you have transported by Ground ambulance to the receiving facility which is one hour away on the ground or would you have opted for Air transport?

I just put in a call to your area representative and hopefully he will call back.

I think these are the same wires that were initially supplied by LifePak. Can you give me specifics on how often these wires need to be replaced? I need to take this back to the powers that be.

for the question on routinely flying these medical patients out. Sometimes, but with the recent dialysis, the elevation in v1-v4, the high blood sugar of 362 and the slight facial droop Our facility that we run out of would have transferred this patient out of our ER in a heartbeat and they would have gone by helicopter so I just took out the middleman. I still stand by my decision to fly him but I will be darned certain to repeat a glucose just on arrival to the helipad from here on out. I'm taking this one to the learning bank and that bank just keeps getting a bigger balance in it.

look there it is again, that dreaded double post bug

ok, on the life pack 12's how reliable is a 12 lead that prints out after the machine has said noisy signal precludes interpretation. What I mean is if the machine says "ECG Override: Data quality prohibits interpretation" how reliable is the 12 lead that is printed out? I've had a couple of the 12 leads do this. If there is elevation on a 12 lead like this is the entire 12 lead suspect or is my interpretation of st-elevation and depression valid?

called on a unresponsive. On arrival found a 54 year old male patient GCS=7(2,1,4) whos family say that he has been this way for an hour or so. He is a known dialysis patient, known cabg(4vessel bypass) and known diabetic. He is sitting in a chair with family holding him. HIstory in past hour of stumbling and nearly falling. I get there and do a d-stick and it's 362. Family stated (I did not hear this part) that they have been feeding him Jelly because his blood sugar was 82 before we got there. Start an IV, see elevation in leads v1-v4. Just had dialysis yesterday. Call for a bird, get him to the helicopter and put him in the helicopter. They fly to the city, do a repeat glucose and find it to be 27. They give him an amp of d50 and he wakes up. I am kicking myself for not doing a 2nd glucose but with his signs and symptoms he didn't need any glucose according to our d-stick machine. When I was told of this reading by the flight crew of 27 I immediatly check the machine I tested him on by using my own blood and also as a control I used my glucose machine also. Both readings were 154 with my blood so I know our machine is not out of whack. I know that I should have checked his sugar again and it may not have required a helicopter ride but I didn't think to check it a 2nd time. I feel bad that this guy got a helicopter ride but if I had it to do over again I'd probably do a repeat blood sugar but who knows. I just feel that I missed something on this one. Wait, that feeling is going away, yeah, it's gone, it was there but not anymore. I feel better venting about it.

I don't follow you??? Are you asking if we turn on the lights and sirens just for the heck of it or are you asking if we have people who call in emergencies but they really aren't. A little clarification is needed. as for imposing noise pollution, if the ambulance and fire service have purchased their required carbon offsets then there is no pollution. If they haven't purchased their carbon offsets then yes they are imposing noise pollution. from the OP's profile jolly volly firefighter, (FFI, HazMat Ops) top-hat and tailed chimney sweep, works for tree company "Just promoted myself to Branch Manager." classical organist, carillonneur (plays tower bells) owns Federal Signal 2t22A air raid siren!, tornado chaser, astronomy, aviation, lightning, Tesla coils, trains, chemistry, electronics loves animals: "In college I majored in Animal Husbandry - 'till I got caught.", has used poodle from the Denver Dumb Friend's League, had beloved potbellied pig - Piganini, has illegal baby turtles, seeks a canary.

We were doing some shopping at Walmart this morning and saw a vehicle parked in the fire lane with it's lights on and no-one in it and it's back window was busted out. We called it in and by the time the police get there the vehicle had left the city limits and went to the next group of businesses. The officer who made it in time to see them drive out got permission to follow the vehicle from the sheriff and he followed the vehicle to the businesses just outside of town. They find the vehicle and run the driver. The driver had a failure to appear warrant for her arrest in our county and a $25,000 bond warrant from a surrounding county for felony marijuana. She was also higher than a kite. Just doing our civic duty.

start charging an hourly waiting fee and billing it to the patient or better yet to the hospital. That will get the hospital powers that be to re-think that policy of letting the patient sit on the ems cots. The first time a patient comes to the EMS service complaining about the wait time and billed wait time, you can tell them that it's because the hospital made us wait for 2 hours for a bed. They can then go to the hospital administration and complain. If you start to bill the hospital for waiting the hospital will see the light. Then again, maybe not. There is no easy answer to this.

ok, here's the skinny and down and dirty reason you have two people One is a firefighter/medic the other is medic The firefighter/medic has to keep up on how to put out fires and all that education and also has to keep up with keeping knowledgeable (sic) with the medical side of the equation. With every fire department that runs EMS they put less emphasis on the EMS side than they do on the Fire side. The medic is required to keep up with EMS only. There is a well documented foundation that if you are required to keep two major careers (yes Firefighter/Medic is two careers) then your knowledge is going to be less for Each career than if you only focused on one career. I know this how????? I was in consulting and also EMS for a short time. I had to keep up on all the knowledge that I had to learn and to keep in my head about the field of consulting I was in. (Hospital Emergency department systems) as well as keep up with my CEU's and general EMS knowledge. I realized that I could not keep both of them in my head with great accuracy. I slowly let my EMS knowledge decrease in direct proportion of how much I was learning on the consulting side. By the time I had been in Consulting for a year my retaining of EMS knowledge was mediocre at best. I chose to focus on consulting and I feel that I was one of the best of the best consultants while when I was focused on EMS (at my previous full time job) I considered myself one of the better medics working. I found out quickly that you cannot excel in both unless you are a genius and that's probably not the case. Either choose to do one or the other but to do both is to do a disservice to both yourself and your patients and citizens.

Well I finally have my website set up and running. I have also took the first step to becoming a non-profit entity. I have become the 3rd chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Paramedics, which is a christian organization that endeavors to uplift Christians who are working in the Emergency Services Sector. Everyone is invited to become a member as membership is free. To see what my website looks like go to http://mokanfcp.webs.com when you first get to the site you will see in the right hand portion of the screen a Login or Register choice. If you are a member please just login but if you are not a member please register. I am hoping to be able to have a yearly conference starting this year in late august or september with some educational elements as well as inspirational christian speakers. Please take a look around at the website and if you like what you see please don't hesitate to join up. It's FREE to join. Thanks for looking. Michael

Sorry for your loss, I too am dealing with the loss of my father in law so I know what you are going thru. I'll fire off a prayer for you and your family

You and i and everyone else do live in a free country but a company has the right to not hire you or fire you if you do something that would make the company look bad. I don't have any problem not hiring someone who's facebook page/or myspace page is inappropriate. The picture I'm referring to is not a nude pic, it's what the person is doing at the time of the picture that's at issue here. So let me ask you all a question, what is acceptable and what is not? From a free country standpoint that Happiness is taking Are nude pics on facebook or myspace acceptable? Are pictures of you doing drugs acceptable? Are participating in a satanic ritual acceptable? Just what is acceptable and what is not???

I was perusing facebook tonight and I looked at a member of this site's photo album. That member will remain anonymous but.... There was a very questionable photo on their facebook photo album. If I was a personnel manager I would put this person on a do not hire list based on that photo alone but the other photos were of this person obviously on their 21'st birthday. I know that people want to be free in expressing themselves to the world but the photo bordered on the pornographic. At a previous employer, clients would get our names and then go to our myspace, or our facebook pages and if they did not like what they saw they would refuse to bring us into their organization. I know of two people who were let go from my previous company based on their myspace pages. One client actually said that they didn't hire a consultant because of the myspace page. This client who didn't hire the person from a consulting company cost that consulting company over 250K for a one year contract. Your profiles are looked at. They are scrutinized by companies and this is an easy way to either make or break your entrance into a particular company. This is a warning and a heads up. It just seems that some people don't get it. I'm ranting and raving and my blood sugar is about 260 right now so I better just stop. take this warning however you want to take it.

ok, I asked a simple question and it devolved into a sex discussion. Dust, put your weiner back in your pants Michael - take a cold shower Jake, get a room Let's get back on task here. Sex robots are off limits from here on out.

holy shit batman, we have several people who have posted that say the partner who saw this going on is not to be trusted. What you are basically saying is that partners cannot be trusted. I certainly hope that my partner is trustworthy enough to both have my back and also point out what I did wrong. What you are basically saying is that partners cannot be trusted. So for those of you who have questioned the partner, when the crap hits the fan and you are the partner of a paramedic who did a beat down that your credibility here is questioned too. Remember, you are someones partner too and I guess that you guys cannot be trusted too. The medic in question if he did assault the patient then he's got to pay the price but to throw the partner under the bus before the evidence is in and proof has been offered is just plain idiotic. My only question is this, why did the partner not stop the ambulance and get back to help her partner restrain the patient if the medic was being assaulted. It sounds like they just kept going. That is where I have issues. When were the police called? Was it when they got to the hospital or was it while they were enroute.