Timmy

1.I think this video has been posted on here before and discussed in the same depth as now. 2.No matter what anyone says, it will prove futile. Everyone has different views and experience that will influence their input. 3.Youth in EMS has been beaten to death many times before. 4.Really, will anything constructive or anything worth while come out of this if we keep debating a never ending issue? Reminds me of that song… “This is the song that never ends”

I agree, tougher history no matter how small it may seem. Even for a headache I don’t just hand out pararcetamol. How do I know if they don’t have a brain tumor, subdural hematoma, head injury or something like that? I always ask a few questions, do a set of obs, get a history and go from there. 9 times out of 10 its just a normal headache. Even something as small as a minor lac to a knee, don’t just hand out a bandaid. Did they hit there head as well? grab a hx ect… Sometime people get pretty pissed when you take 5 minutes of their time when you could just give them a bandaid, but your covering your ass.

Kids should'nt be working emergency but at the same time I don’t think an EMT should be working emergency either. In Australia to work emerg you must be 21 and in most cases have a degree or diploma. I started going out on standbys when I was 11. Until I was 15 on most occasions I was “under the wing’ and supervised by 2 Adult EMTs. When I turned 15 I did all the advanced first aid training (defib,02,OPA,collars ect) and was ‘let off my leash’ so to speak. I was ‘brought up’ around motocross as my division did motocross standby twice to four times a month, this is were I got most of my experience in trauma. I’ve been a sports trainer since I was 15 and firefighter since I was 16. My standby service cannot transport, we handover to the state paramedics if they need transport to hospital. In Australia you can get your Learners Permit which enables you to drive if you have a fully licensed driver next to you. You can’t get your full license until you 21 so I’m still not allowed to drive the ambulance or fire truck All in all, it’s been an awesome experience. I’ve worked with doctors, paramedics, nurses ect. I’ve learnt so much and learn something new very day. I’ve been told by paramedics that doing first aid has given me a leg up. I’ve pretty much gotten all I can get out volunteer BLS and look forward to going to uni and getting into some ALS stuff! But I'm kinda disapointed that they would let kids run emerg.

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Well the flight RN. Your giving them a hand over and their taking over care. Team work isnt such a bad thing

You hear good and bad things about QAS but it’s the same with all service. You’ll have to get use to the heat, sun and humidity. Drink beer, spending days lazing around the beaches, great views, nice women ect ect… At the moment QAS will be dealing with to 20,000 or so drunken kids on the gold cost and surfers.

Seriously you can breath a sigh of relief if MICA attend your next accident. These guys are worth their weight in gold!

“Hey guys, nice day isn’t it….” *Tears pink copy from PRF then hands to paramedics* Everything you’ll ever need to know is on this form.

Advanced First Aid in Australia is the equivalent of an American EMT

To original question. First Aiders can/do give: Inhaled Analgesia GTN Aspirin Oral Glucose Ventolin 02 Nebulised Salbutamol OPA BP AED Industrial EMT: All of above Manually Triggered Ventilators Laryngeal Mask Airway Medication Administration (Injection Procedures) Intravenous cannulation and fluid therapy Wound Closure Advanced Airway Management (Under medical supervision)

These are the 2007 model sprinters that a lot of Australia’s ambulance service are going into. I think there quiet sizey. Theses are the 2006 model? Most Aussie services use these as primary trucks. I’ve worked out of sprinters a few times and think there great. I’m not aware of any real substantial complaints. Apart from slowish exhalation from being a diesel engine but that doesn’t really matter.

What an unpleasant experience for you! I really can’t offer any advice. Maybe you need to make it clearer that you will not tolerate any form of sexual harassment. Have you reported any of these situations? It’s great that you’re talking about it. Have you seeked any professional help? Nightmares could warrant a session or 2 with a psychologist. Life is what you make it, putting these things behind you will make all the difference. The only problem is finding something that will help you. Its most like you will never actually forget the ordeals buts it’s important to manage it. You may need to sit down and devise some form of plan that may aid in setting your confidence back with guys. In these situations confidence is often damage, as in your case. So maybe working on building it up again. Often talking to people who have experienced the same as you helps immensely. Unfortunately these types of things tend to linger round - time is the best cure. I’m sure you’ll be fine! Keep your head up! Take care.

It’s hard to say… How does the law shine down on this? Is the age difference illegal? If all’s well, then all’s well lol… As you said in a small community things are hard to keep secret. If their doing things like being with each other on duty or acting inappropriately while volunteering in any official capacity then there’s cause for concern. If everything’s done by the book or done out of hours then they’d be in the clear but unfortunately some community members frown down on such behavior. Unfortunately this is all to common in volunteer services. I wouldn’t be too concerned unless the service is brought into disrepute or it somehow effects the day to day operations.

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I don’t really think Australia has an ‘emergency team’ as such. I know the Red Cross emergency team does catering, registration and temporary shelter. If something were to happen then the normal government agencies respond, ie police, ambo, fire, and rescue. If they need help ambos will call teams of doctors and nurses from hospitals and call upon support services St John Ambulance Volunteers and Red Cross first aid volunteers but these services don’t really have people on call just for disaster response. Here’s a link to my states health response: http://www.dhs.vic.gov.au/emergency/health_displan

I’ve never heard of paramedics standing by at a high school football match. But hey, if they wana hand over 2 grand for a few hours then go right ahead. I work as a sports trainer. We generally have about 80 football players in 4 different age groups play over an 8 hour period. Over the 19 Saturday games we play I called about 12 ambulances this season. There was only one patient that needed an ambulance there an then (unresponsive, spinal w/ CSF coming from ears) other than that everyone else we could handle till the parameds arrived. Our pro football games always have a non emerg ambo for players but their stabilized by the team doctors before paramedics are allowed to touch. The weekend just gone I was on a first aid team for a horse racing event. The actual track has 2 non emerg ambulances and a few doctors for the jockeys. In the crowd of 40,000 we had 30 first aiders, 5 nurses and 2 teams of state paramedics/MICAs. We treated 80 patients sending 5 to hospital and the track had nothing, in fact in the 2 hours that went completely pear shaped the doctors from the track came into help and they called extra state paramedics. Even with amateur speedway and drag racing chances of any of the riders/drivers getting hurt is slim but when it does their normally hurt pretty seriously. But you’re more likely to get stuff in the crowd. In my experience Motocross is different. I’ve worked about 90 motocross races and maybe treated 5 people from the crowd and maybe hundreds from the track.

I can only talk from a Fire point of view, I have no experience with emergency paramedics but I strongly doubt in fact I could guarantee that kids could not ride on calls. I strongly agree with kids not coming along on calls. I have no problems with them staying behind at the station as long as a responsible adult (preferably with a working with kids check) is present. Most rural fire services in Australia are volunteer based. When your pager goes off then you respond, we have no roster which makes it difficult to find a babysitter in 30 seconds. When responding to the station it’s frowned upon not to mention illegal to speed or break normal road laws. It’s also illegal to fit your vehicle with any form of warning devices i.e. beacons and sirens. They recommend driving the fire truck to normal road laws even when responding to an emergency. I mean you have thousands of liters of water and equipment not to mention 6 volunteers on board, how long will it take to stop if something happens? The only time we break normal road laws is if we have a possible entrapment or on the highway when no body else is driving near us.

These numbers are broken down into divisions, hence my division fleet numbers are Goulburn Valley 106 and Goulburn Valley 051 meaning Stretcher Vehicles. State Wide we have: 10 to 13 - Major Event Specialist Vehicles 014 to 039 - Sedans and Station Wagons 040 to 144 - Stretcher Vehicles 145 to 159 - 4x4 Stretcher Vehicles 160 to 169 - 4WD Twin Cab Utilities 170 to 199 - Caravans/Trailers, Mini-buses & Specialist Vehicles 400 to 499 - Medical Officer 600 to 699 - Registered Nurse 700 to 799 - Ambulance Paramedic 940 to 949 - Advanced Casualty Management Team 950 to 959 - Advanced First Aid Team

I wouldn’t recommend utilizing a used cop car. If your local car dealership wants to donate a car then get a flash, sporty, expressive, fast one! If finance is an issue then consider fundraising, you don’t want to buy a lemon! If you must buy a second hand vehicle then grab one of the local mechanics to tag along and get them to give it the once over. There’s not much we can say. Get a decent vehicles that can be used in your area taking into consideration things like local terrain ect. Stock it with stuff that can keep someone alive till your transport rocks up.

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One of our volunteer firefighters brought along her little taker on a call direct alarm which 9/10 times are false alarms. We were short staffed and her hubby was away for a week so there was no were else to go. It was made very clear he had to sit in the cabin with our comms officer and not touch anything. Normally if someone brings kids to a call our captain’s wife takes them back to her house (were their stuffed with cake!) or someone stays back at the station and keeps them entertained.

It depends what you’re wanting, a patient transport vehicle or an actual responder car?

“Volunteers Proud To Serve!” “Every Second Counts, Learn First Aid” “For the Care of Our Communities” “Wherever there is Need” “Compassion in an Ailing World” “Ordinary people doing extraordinary things”

In MacDonald’s, in uniform, place is packed with people, 4 people I volunteer with and myself sitting down eating dinner, laughing so much I had a sever asthma attack (I haven’t had asthma for years). They all hit panic stations 2 sprinted out to the truck and grabbed the 02 pack, one of the guys screams out “someone call an ambulance”, crowd gathers, people making stupid comments about ambulance people needing an ambulance. After copious amounts of Ventolin and oxygen I start to calm down. Five minutes later the ALS truck and MICA car come flying into the car park bells and whistles. I knew 3 of the 4 paramedics. The police evacuate maccas so they could get the stretcher in, even though I said I could walk. When they were wheeling me out to the truck everyone started clapping. I felt like crawling into a hole and dying, it was sooooo embarrassing. To make things worse when we arrived at the ED everyone was going on about an ambulance person having an asthma attack in Maccas, I recon everyone nurse and doctor came in to check on me. I can’t swallow tablets to save my life so it turned into a massive comedy when I tried to swallow one then throw up. Their all so mean in there, they made me stick my figures down my throat to “push it down” they grabbed my head and pulled it back, talk about taking advantage while they could lol. Ended up crushing it up and putting it into a glass orange juice. Worst day of my life! I still haven’t lived it down.

Blah, I probably won’t get into medic school lol.