anon311

Unless I'm mistaken, NY state still teaches A/O x 3. It definitely did back when I took the class which was only a few years ago. Of course, even a mediocre assessment would (hopefully?) reveal that a pt. doesn't know what happened (LOC?), resulting in proper documentation/treatment even if they're "A/O x 3."

What's A/O x 4? I thought there were only 3 - person/place/time.

Just to clear something up about this scenario - you CAN'T leave, right? It seems that people posting towards the beginning of this thread were saying leave the Jeep family for dead and bring everyone else to the hospital ASAP. You have to stay on scene until you can transfer care to other basics/medics, no?

Hi all, I've been an EMT for a few years now and have thankfully never had a call for an arrest in which I didn't know what to do/was alone. I was thinking recently, however, and came up with these two scenarios in which I wouldn't know what to do: 1) One of the VACs I work with has a BLS fly car. Say you're the first responder to an MVA with a non-traumatic arrest in the rain (presumably the arrest caused the person to crash, or whatever). You'd obviously have to get the pt. out of the car to perform CPR/defib, but could you do this if it were raining heavily? With an ambulance you could throw them in the rig quickly, which is why I brought up the fly car. 2) I've only worked a few codes in my career (thankfully), and all of them have had pulses by the time we got to the hospital. Since I fear this wont always be the case: how do people perform CPR while moving the pt from the rig to the ER gurney? I know with stairs you do a minute at each landing... but I'm not sure what I would do here. The TV examples of someone straddling the patient seem unrealistic, too. Do you ride the rail and do CPR or lower the gurney low enough that you can walk alongside and do compressions? Thanks!

what do you mean?

Ironic that this should happen to me. I was driving down a fairly busy road today and noticed that a van had gone off the road and crashed into a ditch. I pulled over ahead of the van to see if anyone was injured or in need of assistance. The person in the van stepped out and said that he's ok and just needs a tow truck, and asked me if I could call for one because his cell phone (in his hand) is dead. I said sure, and asked if he knew a number. He said no. I asked if he knew what insurance he had (thinking of how Geico gave me a number to call), and he said no. I grew a little suspicious, and started to pick up on a smell of alcohol. He seemed a little sluggish and in a weird mood, and had also driven his car off the road. Not knowing what to do, I called information. Somehow, they didn't know of any tow truck within a 50 mile radius. Knowing that's not true, I called the local police department. They gave me a number, which I called and asked for the tow. To the tow company I mentioned what I had found with the scent/sluggishness/etc. and they said to call the PD back and have someone check it out. I did that. Now I feel really guilty. On one hand, the guy's car was still in ok shape and his plan was just to get towed out of hte ditch and drive on. If he did that, maybe his next victim would be a person and not a bush. I would be in part responsible if G-d forbid anything like that happened. On the other hand, the guy never asked me to pull over, and I'm no police officer. I pulled over to help, and ended up possibly (I say possibly because I may be wrong) screwing the guy over. What would you have done?

I agree with Mike on this one. Even though the confederate soldiers may not have had slaves themselves, and may have been fighting for "states' rights," the civil war wasn't caused by manufacturing or trade conflicts. Also, one could argue that Nazi soldiers were fighting for German rights. Even though this is technically true, we all know that realistically this is not so.

Medic64 I don't really understand what your point is. I think it is to walk on very thin ice to argue that the measure of how racist/offensive anything is depends on who is displaying the item. To me, the confederate flag is most closely associated with slavery and extreme hate. Not to mention the fact that nobody except the flag-displayer himself knows if he is a racist or a "Southern pride" person, so it can be offensive either way.

Isn't there a heritage of hate?