pinkemsprincess

They are quite capable individuals in many ways. These people are not hobbyist. They are simply citizens helping their community, a term apparently vacant from the vocabulary of many on this network site. Do your homework before you go bashing on other EMS agencies ways of working. This particular service can not afford to staff that many paid providers, not to mention they have 2 medics, 2 WHOLE MEDICS!!! The rest of their service is comprised mostly of ECAs and EMTs. These are not stupid or lazy people. Just because they have some other full time job does not make them less of an EMT, ECA, or Paramedic for that matter. If anything it broadens their ability to help others for engagin them in the empthetic aspects of the job. By the way, the State of Texas is perfectly aware of systems that work in this fashion. They MADE IT THAT WAY!!!!! Because they have sense enough to realize that not every area will be needy of fully staffed and paid services. Nor could they afford it if they wanted to. There is far too much terrain to cover. Take note. I work for a private company, we do 14,000 calls a year in a city of 110,000 roughly. We also serve over 90% of the county we operate in, not to mention some thousands of miles of area in 3 other surrounding counties. We also provide mutual aide for some 6 or 7 additional cities on a regular basis. But we have investors and billing companies and non county acquired funding. If your county is underpopluated, you simply can not afford paid services to the extent of what some people on here are suggesting.

These systems usually have more than one first responder on scene. Math = 2 ECAs + 1 driver= the best full crew they can provide. This posting is nothing more than the product of someone who has nothing better to do with their time than dig up crap to make fun of with out fully understanding the entire basis behind it.

Did I miss something? Why is this such a fail? Because they are in need of assistance from their community? Not all EMS services have enough funding to maintain enough personnel to meet their calls and require the need to have a "driver" to meet their needs. Most of those services are lucky to have EMTs, they usually can only get ECAs. These are people who volunteer, they give of their free time to help their community..... Soooo, again. FAIL?! Why, because it sounds hokey to you?

Poverty Questionnaire 1. What race are poor people? any race 2. Are poor people all alcoholics? no 3. Are poor people all drug abusers? no 4. How old are poor people? any age 5. Do they live in city or suburbs? everywhere 6. Are more poor people male or female? maybe even 7. Are poor people lazy? not always 8. Do all poor people have one or numerous kids? not all of them do 9. Is lack of education a reason for being poor? it can be 10. Is low minimum wage to blame for being poor? it can be 11. Are all poor people unkept? not always 12. Is government assistance enough for poor people to survive? no 13. Is social mobility (moving up or down in class) possible for the poor? in some places 14. Do the poor pay taxes? some do 15. Do all poor people steal? not all do

While I definitely can agree there needs to be some regulation of the medevac industry. I firmly believe they do serve a very relevant purpose. I have worked in 2 very different EMS service areas that are fortunate enough to utilize flight services and with proper equipment their benefit increases substantially. But as was stated previously, due to the competition from overgrowth in the industry we see less than acceptable employees, aircraft, equipment and overall patient care and the abuse of the system by flying any and everything. So, yes, good job Dr. Bledsoe!

I know this isn't an EMS related death, but he was somoeone I have worked with a lot over the years. Officer Rodney Holder, a motorcycle officer, was hit during a traffic stop this afternoon. All of us here will miss him a great deal. Please be thinking of APD, his family and those of us who knew him. Thank you.

Are we attempting to rule out the possibility of miscarriage? How many hours are we deciding is "one day"? If we are saying 8 hours for a day, I would deem 5 pads to be normal, that's a change almost every 2 hours. How much difference would there be in your definition of a "full" pad to hers? I would think a typical pad could handle 20cc of fluid. But there are so many variables when questioning flow rate. So, she hasn't had a period in 2 months. Is it normal for her to be irregular? Is her flow tyically light and now this 5 pads is a lot for her? Are you really only curious how much it can hold, or are we going somewhere with this?

So, I can see where they are coming from with the legal aspects of age and what not. However, it has been thrown out there in multiple posts so far that making something illegal won't make it less attractive to a teenager or anyone for that matter. I had several variations of "sex ed" during my public school affair. They were all mortifying. The first encounter was 4th grade. It was reminiscent of the "women are flowers....as they grow and bloom..." Uh-huh. I am going to bleed for several days and this is okay?! I was 9 and scared to death. They sent me home with some maxi pads and a pamphlet for discussion with my mom. Yeah, no. My mom was never one for inspirational or bond developing conversations about anything. When I was 17 she sat me down and said, "I am taking you to my gyno, you are getting birth control." WTF?! "You aren't going to be a young mom like your sister and I were." Oookkaaayyy. Thanks? Luckily my mom has some common sense in place of her lack of emotion. She wasn't lost in the fact that just because she was a parent doesn't mean she can't remember being a teen herself. I stilled learned most things at school, from friends, and my much older sisters. I was warped. I still am straightening out. But bottom line, I have a daughter, I am already thinking about the conversations we are going to have. I don't want her to go as long as I did with poor ideas about sex, sexuality and the differences. Information is never dangerous. People are human; we have brains capable of making decisions. It happens all day long. Some are good and others aren't, but if we weren't informed, how could we distinguish the bad from the good? Someone noted earlier that in the rural areas school is often the only place these kids will get this information. So give it to them. I don't by any means agree parents should give up their custodial responsibilities and throw it back at the schools, however, kids need to know. All aspects.

Everyone has had very true and real things to say about this topic. I most definitely agree and can relate. The very first call I had as a Basic was a code. I was entranced with what I needed to do, it was surreal. Even with my first DOS/DOA it was not very immediately impactful, I found myself discussing my lack of emotions later with my partner who concurred it was natural. Everyone is different. So worry not, you are not weird. Well you might be, in this field you have to be. But this "lack of emotion" is not what makes you weird.