Dustdevil

The best defence is a good offence! First rule of effective self-defence is to never let yourself be on the defensive. Strike first. Strike fast. Strike hard. Strike often. Then it will be time for you to leave the temple. :wink:

This is what happens when I don't get enough sleep. :?

So both of the pretty girls in England are married? I guess there's no reason for me to visit there now.

He didn't get a chance to, haha! I didn't learn that lesson in medic school, the fire academy, or the police academy. I learned it at the school of hard knocks! Always be the first to strike! Good for them! :thumbright:

So, it appears that the excitement was only beginning yesterday. At 0330 an mammoth explosion rocked my quarters so violently that my bed collapsed and threw me to the floor. I actually thought the building was rolling over. So I did exactly what you would expect under those startling conditions. I picked up my pillow and blanket, walked into the clinic and went to sleep on the exam table.

And as an "emergency medical technician." If he is a paramedic, I'd be willing to bet $238 dollars that he used to be an EMT. :wink:

See what happens when you allow EMTs to work on emergency ambulances? I rest my case.

BREAKING NEWS!!! I GOT A SURPRISE VISIT FROM AK TODAY!! [stream:714d502054]http://koti.mbnet.fi/badbee/wavs/ak47.wav[/stream:714d502054] No, not AKflightmedic. AK-47. :shock: So I go to the gym for a good workout around 1300 as usual. I come back around 1430 and notice an expended AK-47 round lying on the floor in front of my desk. I'm thinking, "Interesting. I wonder who dropped this here?" I pick it up and set it on my desk, not really thinking anything more about it. Then shortly afterwards, I sit down at my desk to check e-mail. While doing so, I keep noticing this little chunk hole in the top of my desk. I'm like, "WTF? How and when the hell did I do that without even noticing?" I mean, I wipe this desk down every other day, and I know every mark on it intimately. Where in the world did this new chunk hole come from? But then I go back to checking mail and put it out of my mind a little longer. Finally, I decided to take a close look at the chunk hole to see if I might be able to somehow fix it. Upon close inspection, I was shocked to find that, next to the chunk hole, is the perfect imprint of an AK47 bullet hitting flat. Now the light comes on in my head! AHA!! I pick up the bullet and lay it in the hole. PERFECT FIT! Then I slowly raise my head and look at the ceiling above me. Sure enough, directly above my desk chair is an AK47 bullet hole in the ceiling. Some arsehole in Ramadi decided to send a "To whom it may concern" round over the wall, and it finally petered out on my desk! Had it hit my new, $3000 dollar Apple laptop, I would have been REALLY pissed! I might have had to borrow the Bang Bus and go on a rampage in town! :twisted: So here is an overview of my desk area... Looking very closely, you can see the bullet hole in the ceiling, to the right of the light fixture, over my chair. A close-up of the area of impact... You can see how dangerously close it came to my Apple and my iPod! Bastards! A close-up of the bullet hole in my desk... I placed my calipers there to give you a size reference, and to give the camera something to focus on. Here's the bullet standing next to the chunk hole in my desk... And lookee here... A perfect fit! And finally, a fuzzy pic of the bullet hole above my desk... Sorry, but the camera doesn't focus well on flat, shiny white surfaces. Good times, eh?

Screen distortion notwithstanding, ya gotta admit that was a pretty awesome post. :thumbright:

Fair enough. Your point is much clearer and valid now. But let's be careful to no categorise all learning that doesn't come with a certificate suitable for framing as pointless. It's hard enough to get a medic to crack a book after graduation as it is.

Quite a few actually. The Marines seem to attract a lot of women to the ranks these days. Unfortunately, we lost one of our favourite sisters here last month. http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/mmmcclung.htm Adios, Megan. We miss you!

LMAO!!! I wish I had thought of that! And yes, God Bless the Bang Brothers!

Please tell me you didn't just say that. Or at least tell me you were joking. I don't get any "recognition" for any of the hours of studying I do everyday. Should I just stop studying? I mean really, if I get no CEs for my efforts, why should I waste my time learning anything? Why would I want to be a better medic if it doesn't get me any recognition? I can't imagine. :roll:

Dude, you're like my substitute teacher. You are not expected to attend my lectures. :wink:

I sure hope that nobody does, because that was really an excellent point. Certainly one to consider when we start throwing out rules about "always" doing this or that. Few two situations are the same, and each requires it's own evaluation prior to decision making.

Probably the same. I didn't read anything about immediate, life-saving interventions performed on scene that made any difference in survival for anybody. Did it make everybody feel better to have help there faster? Sure. Did it save any lives? Probably not. And the alternative was not for him to be sitting on the scene with his finger up his butt. The alternative (which the company correctly pointed out) was for him to keep on going and not been on the scene at all. Of course, to reiterate my previous post, before anybody gets their knickers in a bunch, I am not saying anything wrong was done here. Not at all. I'm just clarifying what the alternatives were, and keeping it real regarding whether or not any tangible good was done by stopping.

Inspired by Devin's fine example of shameless self-promotion, I figured I'd post a few recent pics so that everybody can see I still have all my parts intact. I actually have more pics of cool stuff around here, but I haven't had the opportunity to shrink them down for posting yet. Soon. Here's my new friend, General Murthi, the commanding general of the Iraqi Army 7th Division, at the Presidential Palace in Ramadi. He's an awesome guy and truly a friend. He gives me faith that they might be able to pull this thing together out here. I don't meet too many other Air Force guys out here in the Wild Wild West, so when I do, we have good times! Here's me with a couple of Air Force Forward Air Controllers (the guys who go out in the field and call bombs in on top of themselves) I met while stranded in Habbaniyah at Christmas time. These guys rock! We were on a Blackhawk flying back to Ramadi when they decided we needed to commemorate the moment for posterior. SSGT A.J. Gibbs of San Antonio, Texas SSGT Ramiro Lopez of Fort Worth, Texas After getting back to Ramadi by Blackhawk, I had to convoy over to my camp on the other side of the Euphrates River. Here I am ready to kick some arse on the way home. And most of you won't get this one. But for those of you who do, you'll love it! More pics soon!

Wait... I thought you were asking specifically for INNOVATIVE services, not just services doing things differently. I don't find any of the above mentioned schemes to be particularly innovative. I've seen them all tried and failed many times over the years. Perhaps they have a better shot at success in a land where paramedics are decently educated and lawyers don't live off of contingency fees. But in America, those are all just paper theories that never really worked out well in practise anywhere that I am aware of.

You're in Iraq?? :shock: Actually, there is no sand here now. Just mud. :x

Don't try to learn English from the English. They only invented the language. Us Americans perfected it. 8)

Just keepin' it real. :wink: And, since this lovely young lady is new to the forum, she does not yet have the benefit of your experience listening to my lectures on the inadequacies of EMT training. I just thought I'd let her in on the secret. 8)

What in the world are you talking about? I didn't let it expire three times. First time I had to retake it in a different state because there was no reciprocity in the 70's. Second time, I just admitted to myself that I needed the review because I had been inactive for a few years. That's what happens when you are critically injured in an ambulance wreck. And despite 20 years of experience, I knew that retaking it would help me to be the best I could possibly be. Too bad there isn't more of that kind of integrity in EMS. And I don't know where you get a third time. And if you had been in the field longer than thirty minutes, you would know that mandatory con-ed is a pretty new phenomenon in EMS. It didn't exist until I had already been in about fifteen years. And it's not a licence. It's just a certificate. You need to do a little more orientation here before you jump in with such silly presumptions.

Minnesota chicks is yummy! :twisted: There is already a tonne of advice posted here for you, as this question is asked at least a couple times a month. Search around a little with the search function and you'll get plenty of good advice. I'll throw in this one piece of advice; be humble. Don't go in with an attitude as if, with your whole 120 hours of training, you are a trauma god that already knows everything there is to know about EMS. Too many new EMTs do that. Don't try to be something you're not. Be straight up. Tell them, "Hey, I think I got a good education, but I'm as green as they come. I'm here to be the best EMT I can be, but I am also here to learn." They will appreciate that. Good luck!

I contacted the manufacturer of our aluminium Jumbo D tanks and asked them this same question. We leave tanks closed up tightly inside vehicles with lots of glass (Tahoe, Suburban, Excursion) all day long in direct sunlight on 140 degree days and I too had the same question. According to the manufacturer, it is not a problem. The tank is not considered to be compromised until something like 450 degrees, at which point the special coating on it turns brown to indicate the tank should be discarded. And WAY before that, like at half that temperature, the relief valve would pop and relieve any dangerous pressure. If I can find the e-mail, I'll come back and post it, but don't hold your breath. But yeah, the manufacturer says it's not a problem. Of course, if you're using steel or composite tanks, you'll need to contact your own manufacturer for peace of mind.

Okay, so after this wonderful training, they are now capable of performing the technical procedure successfully 78 percent of the time, Which is, I suspect, roughly on par with the success rate of a monkey given the same training. Hmmm... if their success rate actually performing this very simple technique is no better than that, what do you think their success rate at intelligently and competently evaluating their patient's condition and needs (not so simple) will be? You've got to be farking kidding me. :roll: I vote yes, because, with a little more education (about two years worth), they absolutely should be able to do these skills.