Dustdevil

The only point I was making was that the attitude Nate was conveying was, "I don't have to worry about scene safety, because I wait for police to arrive on scenes dispatched as potentially violent," and that is dangerously naive. There is SO much more to scene safety than the presence of police, yet Nate's statement seems to suggest he does not recognise that. Not all domestic disputes are dispatched as such. Many of them are dispatched as difficulty breathing, injured person, chest pain, seizure, diabetic emergency, or the ubiquitous "unknown medical emergency." Not all people with guns, knives, meth labs, or psych conditions bother to tell the dispatcher. It's simply absurd for any medic to assume that any scene is ever safe based upon dispatch information or the presence of police.

Exactly! Does anybody really believe that this is the first time that either of these cretins has blown off a 911 caller like that? Of course not. Two separate operators did the very same thing, and the words flowed effortlessly from their mouths with practised perfection. I would venture to guess that they treat callers like this several times per shift. The records and tapes will show that this is the norm. It is a clear pattern of behaviour that is endemic to the system. And, in fact, I would be extremely disappointed if the city is not doing a comprehensive audit of tapes to establish that this is a pattern of behaviour. When that pattern is established, they should be fired. And prosecuted. And so should any supervisors who have seen this practice and allowed it to go unchecked. Sounds like a clean sweep is probably in order for the entire organisation. But more than likely, the city will eventually just scapegoat the one operator and claim that their system is just fine. :roll:

Christi, AMR is as good an employer as any. Better than most. And they are successful because they are serious businessmen. Their success is your success as an employee. This thread is about how they affect people working in an area they take over. It has nothing to do with how it is to work for them, which again, is about as good as any other. And yeah... if you want to work in EMS in LV, you really don't have a choice.

Doesn't matter. You still have to make a second trip to return equipment to the ambo. Unless you're piling your equipment on the cot with your patient, or trying to carry equipment and the patient simultaneously, which I as a manager would not allow for obvious safety reasons. If you're carrying a patient, that is ALL you should be doing. You should not have bags slung over your shoulder that may shift and throw your balance off, or one hand full of equipment keeping you from having both hands on the stretcher at all times. Carry equipment into patient. Establish patient contact, assessment, and care. Partner returns unnecessary equipment to ambo and retrieves cot (or stair chair, or whatever) Both crew carry patient -- with only necessary equipment (monitor, O[sub:a9fed5ca5c]2[/sub:a9fed5ca5c]) -- to ambo. No extra trips involved. Patient is safer. You are safer. And yeah, the vast majority of systems have firemonkeys to do all that for them anyhow.

Sure. The simple fact is that you just do not know about a great many dangers on your scene until you get there and find them. And a great many of the alleged dangers you assume were there because of the nature of the dispatch were never there to begin with. And the mere presence of police on a scene does not in any way assure your safety. Almost every time I have been attacked, including shootings, it has been with police on scene. If police on-scene was such a safety assuring factor, then we wouldn't see so many cops being shot and assaulted, would we? Use your heads. This is yet another glaring example of both the naiveté of most medics, as well as the horrible inadequacy of EMS education that allows them to enter the field believing this crap. "Scene safety" is not just a phrase you verbalise in skills lab. It is a very real and very important concept that must be in the forefront of your mind at all times. Seems like every idiot coming out of school these days actually believes that as long as police are on scene, they are perfectly safe, and it's just crap. I'm not working with anybody who doesn't get that thought out of his or her head on day one. And I'm not working with anybody who has to be told a third time to keep all ambo doors locked at all times either.

We've been doing that to rookies' patches since the 1970's. I'm guessing that is exactly why they went to the new block lettering.

Oooh, Nate. You disappoint me, young Jedi. You're too smart to make such an absurd statement. Your youth and naiveté is showing. Precisely why ALL ambulance doors are to remain locked at ALL times, unless we are parked inside our station. ESPECIALLY if we are in the ambulance. Two consecutive statements that are blatant violations of the simple principles of scene safety. Sounds like you're burning out. :?

Yeah, back when they didn't say "EMT" in huge block letters in the state silhouette. If I were a lowly tech-school medic, I wouldn't change my patches to the new ones, that's for sure. In fact, taking an extra year to finish your degree so you can get rid of the "EMT" designation is good motivation to do so. Texas patches are really pretty ugly though. Way too big and gaudy, but then again, that's what Texas is all about. I didn't even wear a paramedic patch on most of my uniforms throughout the years. Just the department patch, or no patches at all, if I could get away with it. Nobody reads them or knows WTF they are other than other medics anyhow. Old Texas Paramedic Patch (tech school medics) New Texas Paramedic Patch (tech school medics) Texas Licensed Paramedic Patch (degreed medics) Old Texas EMT-B Patch New Texas EMT-B Patch

Doesn't everybody? :shock: The article did not specifically state that there was an LSB on the stretcher, so you're right. That does leave for us to speculate if one was used, and if not, how that skews the results.

Funny. I have yet to hear it. And there aren't too many medics out there I trust enough to just accept their silly ideas without questioning them first. That is exactly why you don't take the stretcher. It delays you from getting to your patient's side, which is NOT erring on the side of the patient. Yep. It's how most of us learned a long time ago that taking the cot with us was stupid.

They're spinning the numbers to help build a defence, but it's über lame. They are using the total number false calls, including 911 hang-ups, where the caller never says anything at all, which is intentionally misleading. The numbers of actual calls where somebody actually makes a bogus report -- from their own home -- is probably statistically insignificant. When they start their whole defence with a lie, you know they're desperate.

Transcripts of the two 911 calls First call, 5:59 p.m. Feb. 20: Dispatcher: ""Emergency 911, what's the problem?" Robert: "My mom has passed out. ..." Dispatcher: "Where's Mr. Turner at?..." Robert: "Right here." Dispatcher: "Let me talk to him." Robert: ""She's not gonna ... she's not gonna talk." Dispatcher: "OK, well I'm going to send the police to your house and find out what's going on with you. ..." (Dispatcher hangs up.) Second call, 9:02 p.m.: Robert: "My mom has passed out. ..." Dispatcher: "Where's the grown-ups at?" Robert: (Inaudible. Dispatcher speaking over caller.) Dispatcher: "Let me speak to her before I send the police over there." Robert: "She's not gonna talk. ..." Dispatcher: "Now put her on the phone before I send the police out there to knock on the door and you going to be in trouble." Robert: "Ugh." (Hangs up.)

From: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006604100335 Audio of 911 tapes also available at that link. 911 death suit expected Fieger: Boy's mom would be alive if operators took calls April 10, 2006 BY BEN SCHMITT FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER Southfield attorney Geoffrey Fieger said Sunday on the "Today" show that he believes a 46-year-old Detroit woman would have lived had a 911 emergency dispatcher taken seriously a call for help from her then-5-year-old son. He said he plans to file a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of the family today. On the show, Fieger held hands with Robert Turner, now 6, as Robert recounted the Feb. 20 incident in which he called 911 twice as his mother, Sherrill Turner, lay dying from complications of an enlarged heart in their west side Detroit apartment. There's a critical time period to save a person suffering from problems due to an enlarged heart, Fieger said. And "had they responded immediately to the first call at 6 p.m., she certainly would have survived," Fieger said. Detroit Police did not comment on Sunday. But, in a statement Friday, Detroit Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings urged the public not to rush to judgment, saying city residents "can be assured that our department is meticulously examining every aspect of what occurred." The incident and subsequent frustration of the boy's voice heard in the replayed 911 tapes have stirred national outrage. Detroit police officials say they have received numerous complaints from people across the metro area and the country. Fieger said he plans to hold a news conference today at 11 a.m. at his Southfield law office to announce the filing of a suit. According to the recording, when Robert -- who was alone with his mother -- first called 911 about 6 p.m., an operator asked him to bring an adult to the phone. Robert told the operator he couldn't. At one point, "She hanged up on me," Robert said Friday. The recording indicates the dispatcher hung up after saying she would send police to the home. They did not arrive. Robert called back about 9 p.m. And another operator told him: "You shouldn't be playing on the phone. ...Now put her on the phone before I send the police out there to knock on the door and you going to be in trouble." Robert said he was scared and hung up the phone. The child could be heard saying "Ugh," after that last comment from the 911 operator. Kimberly Harris, a 911 operator and president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 1023 union, said Sunday that different dispatchers handled the two emergency calls. A police squad car, not EMS, eventually responded to the call, but it was too late for Sherrill Turner. It was not clear at what point she died or whether she was alive when Robert made the first call. "Today" played both calls Sunday. "In general, this indicates an endemic problem," Fieger said. "There's a discounting of children. Robert did exactly what he was taught to do. And if we're concerned in the United States about the welfare of children, as I know we all are, we better be concerned when they call to ask for help as much as anybody else." Robert, in a shirt and tie and seated between Fieger and his older sister, Delaina Patterson, explained that his mother taught him to call 911 in case of an emergency. Of the operator who took at least one of the calls, he said: "She thought I was playing on the phone." Contact BEN SCHMITT at 313-223-4296 or bcschmitt@freepress

From: http://www.clickondetroit.com/index.html Detroit Boy's 911 Call Considered Prank; Mother Dies A 6-year-old boy's 911 call for help was thought to be a prank, but the call was real and the boy's mother died, Local 4 reported. Robert Turner called 911 to get help for his mother, Sherel Turner, 46, whom he found lying unconscious on the kitchen floor of their Detroit apartment in February, the station reported. "Then I had felt her tummy. She wasn't breathing. Then I had called 911," said Robert. "I told them to send an emergency truck right now." 911 Operator: "911. What's the problem?" Robert: "My mom has passed out." The 911 operator, however, did not take him seriously and told him to stop playing on the phone, the station reported. 911 Operator: "Where's the grownups at?" Robert: (Inaudible) 911 Operator: "Let me speak to her before I send the police over there." "I tried to tell them she wouldn't talk," said Robert to Local 4. Robert: (Inaudible) 911 Operator: "I don't care. You shouldn't be playing on the phone. Now put her on the phone before I send the police out there to knock on the door and you gonna be in trouble." Robert: "Ugh!" (Hangs up.) Kimberly Harris, the union president of AFSCME Local 1023, said more than a quarter of phone calls received by 911 operators are prank calls. She also said that everybody does not express their pain or emergencies the same way. "That operator could have had five prank calls. Kids calling in prior to that call. And please, don't think that I am trying to make an excuse. That was a tragedy," said Harris. Officials said the 911 operator will be disciplined, but because of her years of service she will not be fired. "I know that operator. I know that she is a very good operator," said Harris. "She is very thorough. Robert said every time someone talks about his mother, he starts crying. Police continue to investigate.

Wow, that's another move I haven't seen since the late 70's. Up through the mid 80's, I would still occasionally see some idiot try to back the ambo up the driveway, but we put a stop to that nonsense really quick.

When I was a new EMT, and all we had to carry was one kit, we used to bring the cot in with us. I don't think I have done that since 1979. I didn't think anybody was still doing that. It's really a bit pointless in an ALS system, and even counterproductive. I think taking a cot in with you on arrival is one of those stupid, bad habits that rookies pick up while working as a transfer truck driver, and then carry over with them when they finally get an EMS job, and never bother to rethink it because they think they already know everything from their three years of nursing home transfers. In the ALS age, where you have multiple kits to carry and a good five to fifteen minutes of patient assessment and care to perform before moving to the ambo, I agree, it is slowing you down from being at your patient's side. I find it much more natural and productive to only take my kits in and get immediately to my patient. Then, once I have determined what I no longer need with me in the house, my partner can take that equipment back to the ambo and retrieve the cot for us, as well as a backboard or anything else we need. Of course, this ties in to the whole reason you don't strap your pillow down to the cot. When you pull the stretcher out, you should already know the needs of your patient. More than half will not need a pillow (especially if they're on a backboard), so you can toss it on the squad bench as you pull the cot out. If you have firemonkeys or other first responders who are smart enough to operate a cot, then having them fetch it for you makes them feel at least somewhat useful, and it gets them out of your way for a minute or two. And if you don't have firemonkeys, then going back for the cot ensures that you don't end up having to carry the cot, the patient, and four different pieces of equipment back with you all at once. I have found that that second trip for the cot AFTER patient contact is a very important factor in ensuring that you don't end up leaving equipment on scene, since anything not attached to the patient gets taken back before you leave. That in itself is enough reason to work that way. As always, there are obviously exceptions to every procedure. High rises, long foot walks to remote scenes, etc... And don't even get me started on all the idiots who insist on taking every patient to their truck before initiating care. :roll:

From the original post:

The interesting thing about that theory is the fact that so many basics actually believe they would know the difference between a good medic and an iffy one. Puhleeze. :roll:

They realise what you can do. They simply also realise you don't have adequate education to be doing it with. There is not a single problem that EMS faces which cannot be rectified by education. None. Education is the one and only answer to every question in EMS.

You have NO idea what he is in the middle of doing when you call him. None. If he is in the middle of patient care or driving, his phone ringing is a distraction, and a possibly dangerous one at that. At the very least, it is annoying and rude. If he is not in the middle of driving or patient care, he is at work for his employer and his partner. And if he is my partner, I want to be able to communicate with him without feeling like I am interrupting his q15 minute phone calls. And I don't want our communications interrupted for him to answer is goddamn cellfone just to say, "Nothing. What are you doing? Yeah, me too. I miss you, baby!" and ask about your day that isn't even over yet, and probably involves a HIPAA violation or two. Yes, somebody IS very likely to toss one of your phones out a window. And yes, one of you IS going to get fired over this. Don't forget, EMT's are a dime a dozen and easily replaced. As long as you say it took to get this job, I'd think he'd put a little more effort into keeping it. And if he loses it over your telephone obsession, it's going to be YOUR fault. How do you think that will affect your relationship? Think about it. Grow up. Keep your relationship at home. Be a professional at school and work.

"Dude, we weren't sleeping! We were having sex!" :twisted:

Eric, what was that, Portuguese? I didn't understand a thing you said. :?

I wouldn't worry too much about it. The best job you're going to get in North Texas as a new basic is just driving a transfer ambulance around for $7 or $8 dollars an hour anyhow. You're not going to need any "EMS" skills for that. As long as you can drive and work a cot, you're good to go. :?

Actually, things were a lot better in many respects during the funeral home days. The service was managed by responsible businessmen who were more concerned with customer satisfaction and public image than they were with turning a profit on their runs. In fact, most of them fully intended to lose money on each run, even if the bill was paid in full. Yet they still managed to give us the latest and nicest ambulances and any equipment we said we needed (which, of course, wasn't much in 1973). Only since Medicare and insurance companies started getting involved in EMS has the industry become overrun by wildcatters whose only motivation is the chance to turn a buck and don't care a thing about their employees. Any of you guys who think things are better now that the funeral homes are out of the picture obviously weren't around when they were or you'd know better.

Congratulations! But minus 5 for posting in the wrong forum. :wink: