Dustdevil

Okay, here we go. A few hits, but still mostly misses this week. Glenn is getting annoying with his need for war stories. And his five o’clock shadow has been annoying since the first episode. Makes him look more faggoty than Tyler. Give it a break. Rabbit’s ethnic origin is becoming a running joke, like the GEICO gecko. Love how the siren changes tones all by themselves without anyone turning a knob. The patient getting shot by a return actor is probably the most overtold and lied about story in EMS. Love the way the ER staff takes the patient AND stretcher, AND monitor, and the EMS crew just walks away in the waiting room. And then sends someone out to the ramp to return the equipment to them? Ha! Not in this century! Tachypnoeic? Does anyone really pronounce the E? I’ve never heard anyone but a rookie do that. Glenn driving like a code-3 rookie in the right lane, on city streets. Moron. QUIT MAKING THAT AIR SQUIRTING NOISE WHEN YOU INJECT MEDICATIONS!!!!11 There is no (at least not supposed to be) air in an IV injection! And quit making injections without a needle, while you’re at it. Or at least use a Luer-Loc port instead of an injection port. And at least take the cap off of the syringe hub when you pretend to give an injection. That’s what teeth are for. Relying on the monitor for pulse rate, eh? N00b! Tyler still wearing various non-matching t-shirts with his uniform. Guarantee you SFFD would never tolerate that. LOL@Marisa suggesting that Rabbit make Nancy dinner. Nancy trusts Glenn. Big mistake. Sure enough, it turns out to be. Love the suspense leading up to Rabbit opening up his door for Nancy in the flashback! Find the strap for Marisa’s helmet. It is totally fake without it. Boone’s whacker pouch needs to go farther back on his belt. Nobody wears it up in their lap. Tyler’s Louisiana mullet is priceless! If that was actually the style then, then he’s been an EMT for a very long time. I’m still fascinated that these guys can casually talk to each other by walkie talkie without interrupting dispatch traffic. Rabbit drives home drunk. A-hole. And yeah, harassing dispatch for a run is BS in a department that size. Nobody asks for a run, because they’re likely to give you a shyte run. Dispatcher dialogue is unbelievably fake sounding. Sounds like something from Mother Jugs & Speed. Instant cardiac arrest from a tumble down the steps? Puhleeze! WTF is Nancy hiding her babysitting from Rabbit for? God, I hate her! What a friggin’ drama queen! A&Ox3! Typical California back-asswardness. That’s more outdated than Tyler’s mullet. Tyler and Boone arguing over who has to drive. Totally fake. Crews argue over who GETS to drive. Glenn refers to his patient as “just some drunk guy” who “doesn’t need a doctor”. As if this loser is competent enough to determine that. He’s already killed a few in the last couple of episodes. I sense FAIL! Dr. Di fishing for Glenn to ask her for her story is SO lame. The guy playing Tyler’s dad is good! And the scene of them together was touching. Well played by Tyler too. Good character development. I hope this writing thing works out for Glenn, because he SUCKS as an EMT. SF is a big city. It’s about time that these guys occasionally transport to a different hospital or two. Transporting to only one hospital is pretty fakey.

I was wondering the same thing. But since Toughbooks have handles, I'm guessing someone hung it on the skid step by the handle, so it stayed on until the attitude of the aircraft finally dumped it. This reminds me of the scene from National Lampoon's Vacation, where Clark loops the dog's leash onto his rear bumper, then forgets about it. Common sense says you simply don't do it. Fired.

The "experts" gave us our currently failing educational system. Experts are greatly overrated.

We're not animals because animals don't kill for vengeance. The animals are one up on us.

Just proves that there is more than one way for HEMS to kill people. I guess this is why they call them "Toughbooks". http://www.ems1.com/air-medical-transport/articles/809951-Laptop-falls-from-medical-helicopter-nearly-hits-Minn-boy/ Laptop falls from medical helicopter, nearly hits Minn. boy Life Link officials said the laptop was mistakenly left on the helicopter's skids by a crew UPI ST. CLOUD, Minn. — The family of a Minnesota 10-year-old said the boy was nearly struck by a laptop computer that fell from a medical helicopter. Grayson Peterka, 10, and his family said they were at a cookout Saturday in St. Cloud when the computer crashed to the ground in front of the boy with a gunshot-like sound, WCCO-TV, Minneapolis-St. Paul, reported Tuesday. "I heard the helicopter going by. It was pretty low and then they made like a turn. When that happened it fell to the ground," Grayson Peterka said. Laura Colon, Grayson's aunt, said she investigated the object. "We came around the side of the garage here and we found a laptop and it was most definitely something that fell. It was busted up pretty good. I looked on the back and I saw Life Link and I said 'No way, that doesn't happen,'" she said. Life Link officials said the laptop was mistakenly left on the helicopter's skids by a crew when it departed St. Cloud Hospital. The hospital said it is investigating the incident.

Never work. The vollies are hometown heroes. Everybody loves them for their selfless service to the community. They get the automatic sympathy vote from the ignorant court of public opinion, just like the firemonkeys. Of course, we all know it's a crock. Vollies don't want a paid service. They want their hobby. They don't volunteer to fill a need. They volunteer to feed their own egos, and fight any attempt to replace them with professional service. Ever seen a volly squad publicly campaign for professional service? Ain't gonna happen. And to make matters worse, the hospitals of NJ probably aren't anxious to give up any turf by allowing others to provide ALS in the state either. Everybody fights for turf while the landscape as a whole dies.

That's what the Nazis said. Nobody's blaming the EMT. They're blaming the volunteer EMTs, whose very existence is the reason that the administration is forty years behind most of the world. You're not just working with what you have. You are perpetuating what you have, rather than progressing to something better.

That is not mitigating it once it starts. That is preventing it, which is a totally different thing. Yes, preventing it is easy. You simply have to provide adequate resources for the coverage area, and no try to be a cheap-arse, like most services do. But mitigating the PR disaster once it starts is something I have yet to ever see any agency pull off successfully.

I intend to actually see it live this week, instead of having to wait a day to watch it online! Consequently, I should have something up tonight. The info on the guide says Glenn discusses unusual calls with his colleagues (should be good for a HIPAA violation or two), and Tyler's dad visits, which should be good for epic lulz.

Better to just get her to the hospital than to delay definitive care for a so-called "intercept", when ALS should have responded in the first place. Poor patient care and poor decision making. That's why we are anti NJ volly.

If they want to blame someone, they need to blame their own city council, who let the other ambulance service slip away. Hell, they weren't even asking for money, just a place in the rotation! The only reason to refuse an offer like that is politics.

LOL! Theoretically, maybe. But had you ever gone to military school, or served in the military, you'd realise what a crock that is.

Problem is, nobody has sufficient resources. I'm not against guaranteed breaks. I'm just stating that, realistically, they will always eventually result in a PR disaster.

Unfortunately -- right or wrong -- I simply see no way to ensure regular, interrupted meal breaks without eventually creating a major PR disaster. It's only a matter of time before someone goes to the news about it, and there is no way to win once that happens.

Eat inside the restaurant or outside. Infection control and sanitation. Pretty standard for hospitals and other biohazardous areas.

Meh... I'm still going with Spenac being drunk.

I didn't say they prohibited eating in the ambulance. I said they prohibited food in the ambulance. Two different things. Hard to brown bag it if you can't carry food in the ambulance.

I didn't diss the company. I'm the last one here who would do that. I merely intimated that there are obviously some problems at that specific location that may result in an unstable workforce, as well as efforts by the company to shore up their image there.

Who gives a flying F what they need? If they need it, they need to get it. If they aren't competent to do so, then why are they responding to these incidents in the first place? Letting nonsense like this go without protest just feeds their already overblown egos. Time to draw the line. Not that I expect your employer to do so. Few have the guts to speak up.

Nobody needs warmth in Texas. We need air conditioners to get motivated!

This never surprises me. The practice of half-arsing paramedic training just to get a firemonkey job is rampant in this country, and in fact officially sanctioned in some areas. After all, we don't need all that book learnin'. And, according to this article, we don't need all that field experience either.

Were you drunk when you posted that, or were the negatives removed by someone? I don't see any negatives (or positives either, for that mater).

Hmmm... the thread title seems to be the direct opposite of what the article says. But it does seem that AK understood the article itself. Anyhow, I'm all for corporal punishment. But I am against it in schools. I vividly remember the three times I got paddled in school for something I didn't do. I was denied my due process. Someone says you did something, and boom, you get your arse beat on a false accusation. F that. The schools aren't competent to administer justice, so they have no business doing so.

And if your employer prohibits food in the ambulance...?

It is extremely rare that A.J. Heightman ever says anything about EMS that I agree with. I think he's just too concerned about being politically correct and making all parties "feel good" about their participation in EMS to actually say anything profound. For EMS to progress, it's going to take leadership that isn't afraid to ruffle feathers and challenge the status quo. As much as I love Jules, I'm not really on-board with what she seems to be getting at in this article. She is absolutely correct about the benefits of being united. However, as we have often discussed here, it simply cannot and will not ever happen in EMS. EMS is fragmented for a reason. It is fragmented because not everyone is here for the same purpose. The fire service, the privates, the vollies, the first responders, and all other stakeholders have independent agendas that rarely have anything to do with quality patient care. You cannot unite these factions. Any effort to do so is a pointless exercise in futility, and only delays the inevitable. What is the inevitable? The inevitable is one of two things: Either EMS will progress as a medical profession, and push the selfish special interests aside to do so, or else it will eventually become just a side-job for the firemen nationwide. I honestly see no other potential outcome. That means that someone is going to have to step aside and let progress happen. Attempting to assimilate those people into the cause is counterproductive.