bandaidpatrol

Add that to the list. New Jersey and Virginia... Maybe we can trade them to Canada from some watered down beer?

I think I seen this topic before, "SVA"? Stop Volunteer Ambulances? Comes out of New Jersey, according to another EMS site... Maybe if we just eliminate New Jersey?

I think there are only about 4,900 residents in our whole county...

I do a fair amount of scanner listening, the local crew seems to do a little over 800 calls a year.. It's usually reported in the paper as to how many calls per municipality... for the tax payers.

The attitudes and egos coming into modern EMS, are what scare me. It is a single persons opinion, is what makes another provider unprofessional. But what one mind sees, amongst scrutiny, is likely how it acts by itself. Negativity spreads like disease... -Me

What exactly is the problem with them? New Jersey seems to be the only state that hates their volunteers. Something about garbagemen driving the ambulance. In the early days, we saw very few "Volunteer Ambulances". It didn't start out with volunteers exclusively, as the fire service in fact, did. It started with paid rig drivers, surgeons and nurses in wars and from hospitals. In the 40's and 50's, my childhood, we had funeral homes with paid drivers and attendants. Hospitals paid their ambulance personnel, as did fire departments. But there were very few volunteers, locally, as it was very expensive, and very little money could be made. The problem was, there were too many emergencies, not enough ambulances. We only took calls where there was not a funeral planned or in progress. While there was, we shut off the phone. In the city, we started the shift working our way through a list. People had called hours before on some occasions, just because there were only a dozen ambulances for hundreds of thousands of residents. Hospitals may have had one or two, but covered vast areas. We would run no calls on Monday, two on tuesday, fifteen on wednesday, funerals on Thursdays and Fridays, then not get a wink of sleep all weekend. The best thing that ever happened to us was the so called volunteer "Competition". In the 60's and 70's, they popped up all over the place. Some were horrible, others were the model for the future of EMS. Better equipped than the city, because we had no money, and no smarts and they did. We were getting our equipment from the warehouse at the docks i.e. Korean War Surplus. The Sons of the American Legion had an ambulance, my brother drove their ambulance every Wednesday & Sunday from 6am-6pm. The fire company wanted an ambulance, but couldn't afford it, but the ladies auxillary had one. My mother was their recording secretary. In the end, I sold off our paid ambulance in 83, to a volunteer service. They had more people, more time, and had the oppurtunity to make some more money. Another problem, when it comes to there being too few ambulances; distance and time. Given tax values, if you got rid of all the volunteer ambulances, and replaced every 5 "squads" with 1 paid service... How far would the average American be from an ambulance? The neartest paid service to me is at the hospital, a distance of nearly 62 miles. The nearest volunteer ambulance is at the Fire House, about a quarter mile down the road. If I were having a heart attack, could I survive the wait for an ambulance, 62 miles away? If the local "squad" is out, there's another about ten miles away, and another about twenty. But sixty-two miles? Good thing I already had my casket picked out... -The opinion of a 33 Year Union Man

I retired at 64 to part time EMS.. and retired completely at 66. I didn't think I was too old, it was getting boring.

Now that's funny, filled in its own blank!

That's great... :?

Good place to build a subterranean home, on a hill... Flood, Fire, Tornado & Earthquake Proofed. You'll be good to go!

You spelled Pedophile wrong. Unprofessional comment for a public forum. That's the kind of comment that will get you a law suit slapped across your face. What's a MILF?

I haven't read many novels on EMS, but I have dozens, usually given to me as a gift. I do have lots of old.. OLD... EMT and Paramedic Text books. Probably the most read are "The Ambulance Attendant" and Emergency Care of the Sick and Injured (correct title?)... Which is still published today, in something close to the 30th edition. I did read two books by Pat Ivey, with in the past five years, my son gave me both of her books for my birthday, and one called "Omaha Orange". I really enjoy the Ivey books, she is a truely talented author, and her writing style is top knotch!

You Are a Soy Latte At your best, you are: free spirited, down to earth, and relaxed At your worst, you are: dogmatic and picky You drink coffee when: you need a pick me up, and green tea isn't cutting it Your caffeine addiction level: medium What Kind of Coffee Are You? http://www.blogthings.com/whatkindofcoffeeareyouquiz/

We don't mind... We love billers! We point the finger at you, when the patient bitches at us!

IMO, in order to give the victim the best possible chance, I wouldn't move them at all. Except for IV, Intubation, resuscitation and CPR, leave them be. All of my saves happened while the patient had never been moved, including my first, back in 1952. I never moved them, I just performed my duty, and they came back. The ones who were moved by someone, or boarded and threw on the bed, never made it out of the hospital.

My son bought me a copy of a four-hour DVD collection of "Emergency! Convention 98". I wasn't at this one, but the DVD is just the bee's knee's! I believe he bought it on ebay?

Just go to a coffee shop at 3am, in any city. You're bound to find one with in several feet of the door. Just yell "cops".

Paid by Forestry? Do you also get Twenty-Seven cents an hour for carting a 25lb galvanized steel tank around on your back? I recall a forest fire a little over 20 years ago, train started it along the Kinzua viaduct. Thirteen hours fighting that blaze, I had purple marks on my shoulders from that tank. I guess it's called an "Indian Tank"? My check was for $3.51. 13 Hours x 27 cents. :roll: While I had very little time to do any volunteering, I am a "life member" of the local fire dept. I think that's an honorary title, as I send them a check for $500.00 every year. But I used to have a radio, and respond to fires. In fact I probably still have it. Nothing like the tiny minitor pagers they have now, this thing had a shoulder strap, a 6' antenna, and weighed 6 pounds. I believe it was called a "Plectron". Made a loud, annoying, high-pitched warble when the tones went off? Locally, I guess EMS was paid, because we paid our drivers and attendants that drove ambulance for the funeral home. But we did have some volunteer EMT's from the fire dept. who rode along on cardiac arrests and when taking in automobile accident victims. It went back to them in 83, they are all volunteer, as far as I know.

They are what make his 4x4 the 5x5, when worded as so.

As long as the head, shoulders, arms, torso, pelvis and legs cannot move... Then your method works fine. If they can freely move, so can the spine. When the spine can move, bone fragments have a better chance of getting to places that they do not belong.

Sarcasm. Some decisions cannot be made with out someone else in a higher position, telling us that we have that privilege. We have to ask aka beg med control.

I was under the impression that pain meds were a big no-no for abdominal pain, unless they are in the ER. An urgent care center, at least around here, is like a large doctors office. You can get an X ray, labs, cardiac intervention, but they transfer all the more serious cases to an outside facility. I'd never question a doctor, but how easily can they diagnose the pain, if it's gone? Other than being tachy, the BP is okay. Tachycardia isn't that bid of a deal, unless there is some underlaying cause. People that are upset get tachy. I'd be concerned if it was SVT, but with the BP and respiratory rate, it doesn't concern me. Phenegran can give you a spaced feeling, as with most antiemetics. But chances are, the 25 of Demerol is the cause of her sinking feeling, the right combinations of meds have set this course. I'd like to see the outcome, because it sounds vague, possibly a UTI?

Also consider Hydrogen Acidosis and Coronary Thrombosis

I was a paramedic for 34 years, and a combat medic on the line for two years. I know how to do my job. I don't feel that you are in a position to judge my career. I did my best working as a medic, a funeral director, a service owner, and watching my best friends die.. So that I could provide for a family of ten, give them a comfortable life, put them through college, two through medical school, and one who followed in the footsteps of the funeral service. The point of my post, was offering an anecdote to the abbreviation PEA. I didn't go into detail.. If you want to run through every possible protocol that exists for cardiac arrest, weather or not they all use the last resort meds, go ahead. I assume they would already know how to do their job, and I wasn't questioning anyone.

Push your epi and atropine (PEA-Problem/Epi/Atropine), if you can't feel a pulse, or see one on the monitor during CPR, best to call it quits. If the blood isn't moving, the brain is dying. What would the chances be they would have the same quality of life? I probably would have called MedCom to beg permission to cease resuscitative efforts.