Medic2588

I've been out of the loop for awhile. Thanks to Dwayne for calling me out and making me realize that. I gave up working on the street full time for a job with the Feds traveling around curing the country's disaster woes. Hope to become a somewhat productive member of the EMTCity Community once again.

Most programs hire from their students but never bank on it. I agree with Herbie and encourage you to do a ride along. Don't worry about finding a "safe" area to work in. Experience has shown us that it doesn't matter where you work or volunteer you're bound to have some situations which are unsafe. And its usually those situations that occur in 'safe' areas that turn out to be the most deadly because of the complacency of the responders.

The problem wasn't they waited till 3am, they actually desperately tried to activate the mutual plan earlier. But considering their mutual aid plan was to get ambulances from Long Island and New Jersey they were trying to get resources from areas that were already snowed in. I'm a little late on this, but did anyone from NYC Sanitation get sacrificed?

Rich - slightly different at Newark... University Hospital EMS runs a dedicated ALS unit at the airport. I don't know if the are allowed all access to the airport (I thought they were). I've only ever dealt with them during the yearly disaster drills and the occasional in-flight emergencies that seem to follow me when I'm coming home from deployments. I don't know why an ambulance wouldn't be allowed to respond outside of the 'controlled' area. It can't be a security issue since most of the ambulances are stationed outside of the terminals to begin with, and you lose all 'sterility' when you transport someone to a hospital.

I had a volunteer squad chief who used to bring her kid to the scene with her. She'd leave the kid in the car and check on what the crew was doing inside the house or the wreck. I never understood that, especially when she showed up for an accident with ejection with her 7 year old in the back.

You're right Dwayne, pretty douche of me. I stop in front time to time as the new job allows but haven't had much time to post on the topics.

Shamelessly kicking this back to up to the top now that we dropped the price

I'm spending the high holy day in the Mother Land!

After a very long hiatus from writing, I decided to throw my hat back into the ring with a Kindle download novel. Since I had such a horrible experience with the publishing world, I figure I'll ease my way back in. This novel is not EMS related, but if it sells decently I have two EMS novels in the chute. If you'd like a fast-paced, easy and light hearted parody of the Tom Clancy counterterrorism genre, give AIM HIGH a look on your Kindle or Kindle App. AIM HIGH... Confronted with the prospect of being forced to retire into civilian obscurity, three Air Force generals concoct a plan to secure lucrative consulting jobs by staging a terrorism exercise on a top secret military complex. However, when real terrorists attack the complex in hopes of stealing experimental biological weapons on the exact same day, it’s up to a misfit group of airmen to stop them before the Pentagon has a chance to clean up the mess - permanently. AIM HIGH is a fast paced, comical, and quirky parody of espionage and counter-terrorism novels - complete with biological and nuclear weapons, vengeful spies, scheming wives, jilted lovers, a shortchanged pizza delivery man, and a host of other colorful characters whose lives come to a twisted intersection at a highly classified weapons facility that stands atop a drained swamp in New Jersey. And as always, EMS and EMS 2 are still available on Amazon. Updates can be found on Facebook - Devin Kerins Book. Enjoy!

Thanks for the link crotchity... and no vehicle here. My main purpose is incident management, but they want a medic to provide a little more than first aid to the team members if someone gets sick or injured

Greetings, Through my travels throughout the EMS world I have somehow stumbled into a disaster response team (particulars will go unmentioned) that would be providing incident management on large scale emergencies. Upon finding out my background, our leader volunteered me to take on the duties of team medic for force protection in the event we are operating in an out of the way location with little or no emergency medical care available. So my question to the tactical operators out there is: With limited diagnostic equipment available to you (I MAY be able to swing a Lifepak 12 but can't be sure), what sort of equipment and medication (both ACLS and OTC) would you consider 'essential' for immediate life saving intervention in austere conditions? What sort of austere conditions? Use your imagination and we would probably respond, short of open combat. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Devin

I'm amazed and more than a little disturbed that you guys remember so many algebra terms 8)

Ok, so is NJ the only place with volunteers in the country? Why are NJ's volunteers any worse than the rest of the country's? And in regards to Akroeze's comment, there are plenty of EMS jobs in NJ. No one is hurting for a job just because we still have volunteers. Finally, its gotta be asked, is NJ the ONLY state in the country with problems in its EMS? Certainly not. FDNY is a mess, Philadelphia Fire is even worse - to name a few. Why do we constantly single out NJ?

While i concur something needs to be done in NJ to fix the problem, I am staunchly against removing ALS from the hospitals and placing it in the hands of fire departments or local first aid squads. The first departments and first aid squads have a hard enough time staffing 2 EMTs, how can they expect to staff 2 paramedics (and yes, I'm very much in favor of keeping 2 paramedics). Do we need more ALS units? Absolutely. But we should remove the Certificate of Need policy and allow any hospital within a county to staff an ALS unit if they so choose. But those ALS units should fall under a single dispatch center for better coordination. Its also very ridiculous that I have to ask for orders for everything. So we should expand the standing orders protocols to include a whole lot more and leave contacting medical control for extreme cases. Should the First Aid Council be disbanded? They are pretty harmless in the grand scheme of things now. With the expection of a few old timers, most of the state's agencies have recognized the futility of the organization. The state needs to step up though and regulate every ambulance providing 911 service though. I'm not against volunteers in the slightest. If the agency has no problem staffing ambulances with volunteers, then by all means continue. But something has to be done about agencies that flounder when it comes to staffing. Just my thoughts.

Would I be killing the joke if I pointed out that the picture looks like it was taken in an African country and thereby not "redneck"? 8)

I did the JeffSTAT program in Philly several years ago. The instructor was amazing but he moved on. What I liked best was the relationship with Philly Fire for ride time. Great learning experience. Devin

Not only that Ruff, but someone with HIV is by definition immuno-compromised. I'm healthy as a horse and still acquired a MRSA infection somehow. It was painful and uncomfortable, but I can only imagine how bad it would be for someone with a compromised immune system. I'm torn about Hep B and Hep C. While I agree them bleeding on someone could transmit the virus, in my own experience I just haven't seen that many people bleeding onto their patients. But you still present a valid argument. TB I'm all in favor of. Active TB should not be allowed on an ambulance.

There are several towns in NJ that police run EMS and others that supplement volunteer agencies with on duty officers. What info are you looking for? Devin

How many other states make public their walls of shame? I'm curious to see what people are up to in other states. Can anyone top the impersonating an FBI agent for the purposes of kidnapping and killing someone? :shock: Devin

Dust... nice shot at NJ However, most of the people on the site who "impersonated EMTs" are trying to work for private transport companies and get caught. Considering the pay for those companies is just about volunteering, my argument holds no water Devin

I took the Tactical Element program when it was in Jacksonville, FL. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and it seemed right in tune with the knowledge and skills that were expected of me on my teams. My suggestion is to look at what will be expected of you on your tactical team and then find a class that supports those requirements. Every class teachs you a little something extra or different, its just a matter of what will work best for you. Devin

Yes, and I was adjusting my crotch when the camera panned to me. :shock: Devin

Granted, they are very lucky. But I'm left thinking about the shootings I've been on and trying to play this one out in my head, devil's advocate I guess. There seems to be some information left out here. How was the first person shot? Was it received as a self-inflicted GSW and they found the first gun? Was the second shooter meerly distraught over the first shooting? Its easy to stand back and criticize, but I've been on a few scenes that were "cleared" by the police and we still received gunfire from shooters who returned to scene. This does emphasize the need to ensure scene safety, but I dont think this crew did anything wrong (based on the limited information posted). Devin

Capt, Asysin touched upon a common theme with gangs nowadays, even though he might not have meant to. There is a common misconception (I'll say at least on the East Coast) of "colors." Many gangs out this way have abandoned the classic display of clothing of a particular color. Why? Well, for one reason, as Asys touched, you won't notice them as much. This could be to not stand out to rivals or to law enforcement. Areas of NYC probably has as much problems with gangs as anywhere else, its just not something that is overtly obvious. Another trend is to dress is a similar fashion (I've heard police refer to it as "the uniform"). In my areas, this means dressing in oversized plain white t-shirts, baggy blue jeans, not descript sneakers, and a white skull cap. Why? Probably so that it makes it harder to identify someone in commission of a crime or to reduce how much you stand out to rivals. Gangs are identified by the way they wear their clothing (certain side pant leg rolled up means one gang, etc) and by their tattoos. Devin

I write off: Cell phone - because I use it "ONLY" for work :roll: Uniform and supplies Vehicle mileage for response beyond normal office/truck work (I'm on an incident management team) Education expenses Shane, never thought of the DSL bill, but I'll have to try it! Because I only use that for work too, and not watching 2 Girls 1 Cup... oops, I shouldn't say that outloud :shock: Devin