island emt

I'm still around Dust ! Where in Maine? I'm in casco bay, mid coast area.

We had a horton once that was a certified hanger queen. The mechanics nick named her "up in smoke" You will really like riding in a PL Custom. great trucks

We were told that we need to rotate them after each use and to check the battery charge indicator on a weekly basis between uses. we left one in the spare holder in the case for 1 month before it showed enough discharge to require a trip to the charging station.

Large round of applause for Steve!!!!!!!!

Sounds like working for the " evil empire " never changes. All the chicken shat management you can think of.

In this day of sue happy society it's not that you followed your protocols and documented proper care that matters! Can you afford to hire a $250.00 to $500.00 an hour lawyer to represent you in case you get called into court .It could cost you 10 -15k just to represent yourself even if you did follow the rules. It will cost you a lot more if you actually make a mistake after your tenth run that shift and need quality representation. And if you think that they won't sue you as an individual your wrong. Today they use the shotgun approach , sue everyone connected to the case and let the land sharks work out the details of who pays what in court We're not talking criminal court here , CIVIL court is where they take your house or bank accounts or garnish your future wages. If you think that your employers insurance company has your personal well being at heart . I'd like to sell you a bridge in Manhattan! Do as you like but be prepared to suck it in when the unlikely event happens and you find yourself standing in front of an opposing land shark being deposed as your employers shark decides to throw you under the wheels of the bus, and walks away smiling.

I've carried that companies policy for many years. As stated above I don't advertise that I'm covered, BUT it's there just in case the need should ever arise. I don't plan to allow anyone to take my home or anything else I've worked for. The price of the premium will barely keep your car filled with gas for a week these days.

Easier solution : Don't live in New Jersey. Guaranteed to extend your life !

Jafo : place a call to Masimo and speak with Jeff Goegal . We purchased one last year and he was extremely helpful and at the time offered a EMS discount plus a trade in rebate of used pulse ox's even broken ones. We have a lot of CO calls also and in the last several months there have been multiple fatalities due to CO poisoning in the county and state. As P-3 mentioned it is a great tool to assist in triaging pt's to help you make informed transport decisions. Also helps to convince someone who is borderline and not willing to be transported, showing them their elevated CO levels and those of a normal reading will often convince them to be seen at the ER. Another excellent use is in fire scene rehab checks of FF involved in suppression. They all get checked after every air bottle before being allowed to go back in. With all the toxic materials today the rad 57 provides one more way for us to protect them, so we all go home safe...

Quote :"14.4. While walking through the clothing department, ask yourself loud enough for all to hear, "Who buys this crap anyway?!" The correct question is WHO in their right mind buys all this chinese CRAP ! Wallmart is a blight on America

What if you don't own a cell phone cause there is no service where you live???????

We run Michelins exclusively, LTX all seasons on the steer axle & LTX M&S on the drive duals . We have a studded set that go on in November and come off in april. They are 10 ply rated and are great for traction & handling on pavement or dirt roads, excellent in the slop of winter. Plus they wear like iron and give us at least 40 - 50,000 miles per set. They cost a little more than CHEAP brands but cost per mile is much lower over the long term.

I once worked for a small family owned service with great facilities for us. heated garage bays, recliners in the common room, private shower facilities , and bunk rooms.But then the large 300 pound gorilla came to town bought the owners out and tried to implement SSM into our nice system. needless to say all but one employee put up with that horsepuckey for one day and we quit. The one that stayed& became the brown nosed branch manager. He was the worst emt in the company & they made him the boss because he drank the coolaid. The empires way of treating your valued employees, make them post in a truck for 16 hours a day in parking lots of businesses that didn't want us there.

would you like some cheese to go with that whine?

Just to show you how rural we are , the e-mail message came out today warning that the Fentany/ heroin blend has just been confirmed for the first time in an OD. But we still have lots of OXY's . l can hardly wait for the new & improved "junk" to hit the streets.

you did exactly as I would have done . quote"were transporting a pt from a extended care facitlity to home for hospice care and to die at home. " this patient kept himself alive until he arrived home and then let himself go. exactly as he wanted it to be. To have started a "code drill " on this patient would have been nothing more than flogging a corpse without reason. We recently [last month ] were asked to provide a members last ride home from the hospital to allow him to pass away at home with family and friends at his side. he had terminal cancer and did not want to go in the sterile confines of a hospital. I went to visit him last monday and he said to me " this is it , it's time for me to say goodbye. He passed in his sleep a few hours later. Just as he wanted , pain free and in the comfort of his home. Also thank you for staying and assisting the family make arrangements. this is the difference in how they will remember you & your service. They will remember the compassion you showed them in their time of need. Too many times I have seen this scenario and the medic says to the family they're gone and so are we. P.S. take an atta boy out of petty cash

Bushey : from someone who's been in this business much longer than you've been on the Earth pay attention. The calls that you mention are few and far between, unless your working in an urban combat zone less than 8 % of call volume is going to require a paramedical intervention. Yes when you need it it's great to have but requiring two medics on every single truck all the time is not the answer. One of them is going to spend most of their day being the basic. Better to put a second truck on the road with a basic /medic team and provide less work for the crews. I've worked in both scenarios and much rather prefer the basic / medic format. My crews here also prefer the split teams.

Okay : so now we have two blokes with their four year degree in Paramedical sciences who show up at work and ONE of them spends the entire shift holding the steering wheel or totin shit in & out of patients homes. Excellent use of a four year education. kinda like askin if ya want fries with that!

Quote : We have to re-examine our overuse of helicopter based EMS. The hospitals, for the reasons above, certainly aren't going to do it. The public, despite a rising death toll, isn't questioning it, even as we have more helicopter services and more accidents per mission. " 'zilla A standing round of applause for you Doczilla.!!! This is something that i have seen in recent years with the proliferation of air -evac services. There is a time & place where rotary wing evac is the appropriate method of transport. however they are being overused for the everyday non life threatening type of calls that make it hard to justify. Has anyone done a study on what percentage of patients flown from scene to a trauma center are discharged within 24 hours? Granted there are times such as TBI or multi-systemic trauma in which the patient won't survive the hour plus ground transport times we have to a level 2 trauma center, where the helicopter is warranted , burn patients that need to go out of state are another reason to call for the helicopter. Just because you have a serious PI motor vehicle crash does not , especially if your ground tx times are under 15 minutes. Now back to your previously scheduled debate /slam of fire department medics.

The last Basic class I taught had several cadavers in it > Of course they were the students, just wasting oxygen by being there. :-]

AK: be safe brother !! Wait a minute wasn't there a recent thread about mental illness in EMS providers?? Hope it's not contagious

Mike : I'm with you on this . We used Physio defibs for many years starting with a 5 and a lp300 on up to the 12. Of them all i think the LP 10 was the best of the bunch in overall ruggedness and ease of use. Then we discovered the M -Series . with the rugged case & all the options , it's taken a beating in all types of environments from snow + ice to rides on the ocean & never skipped a beat. Even able to use it on an hour ride on a diesel lobster boat with out too much artifact.

I find it hard to believe that there is the perceived superiority of Lifepak vs Zoll monitors. The 12 is a top heavy overpriced unit while the Zoll is designed for in the field use at a lower cost with greater reliability. Fire away all you LP groupies!

Start by asking them if it was their family member in Cardiac arrest, would they trust a 10 plus year old piece of equipment to save their life. Next point ask if the manufacturer is still providing tech support and certifications of these obsolete units.[ Think liability if it fails to work properly when needed ]. Are the units annual certification records current ? We have shelved a LP 300 & several LP5's years ago. I could see keeping a LP10 around as a spare maybe , but the STANDARD of care is bi-phasic waveform defibrillators. [ again think liability] Next point " standardizing equipment throughout the fleet makes the chance of mistakes smaller, training easier and consumables [pads , batteries] will be easier to maintain inventory, Sure the ole LP 5 still turns on and you can do cool things with the thermal printer, BUT this is 2006

Oilersfan: Having used the thumper years ago and now having the Autopulse on our ambulance service , there is no comparison between the two. The A/P is easy to use , easy to keep the pt. aligned and the A/P will give a palpable B/P to a pt in arrest. With the new AHA guidelines recommending non interrupted compressions in order to re-perfuse the cardiac tissue and supply blood flow to the brain , this machine will do what is advertised. It will also provide continuous compressions while carrying the pt down stairs or across the lawn to the rig. I used it twice in one day a couple of weeks ago and was amazed at the ease of starting an IV on a pt that had been down about 5 minutes prior to our arrival, after less than a minute on the A/P. Real perfusion to the extremities , the battery will last at least 45-50 minutes on a charge then slide it out and replace it in 10 seconds back to compressions. attach ETCO2 to the tube and we saw essentially a normal waveform and values on a pt in arrest. The big advantage to using it , it allows your crew to be seated while in transit not trying to remain upright and balanced while bouncing down miles of rural roads during your trip to the hospital. this also allows a smaller crew to dedicate their time to airway and meds without having to swap off on compressions every few minutes. For more information check out the Richmond Ambulance Authority . They have been on the forefront of using the AutoPulse and I believe have more uses than anyone else . they were a lot of help in answering my questions about the unit prior to deciding to purchase it. Try sending a PM to richmond medic on this site, or send me a PM with your E-mail + i will forward it to him. Is the Autopulse the secret to reversing all cardiac arrest?? no but it sure is a lot better than any of the other options available out there today. Time will tell if it will make a big difference in outcomes . but it sure makes it a lot easier to run a code with continuous compressions of an effective depth and strength.