Richard B the EMT

7 to 1 odds? lol

Variation on a theme: You stab them, we "slab" them. As for "Star" overuse, what about "Life" overuse in company names?

In some of these jumpsuit shots, seems all you need is to add a cape, and some kind of emblem to the front of the suit, and she'll be rescuing Green Lantern or Spidey!

Meatspin? Wozzat? Careful with the glitter dust in the air conditioning vents. A Paramedic team and an NYPD "RMP" (Radio Motor Patrol) team were trading pranks on each other, and the Paramedics put the powder into the vents of the cop car while it was unattended. Unfortunately for all, the RMP team had the Sargent ask for the keys to move the car, and HE was the one got sparkled. This was followed by both the RMP team, the Paramedic team, the Sargent, and the EMS and NYPD CAPTAINS having a frendly (?) conversation at the precinct, where the captains told both teams to knock it off, or be considered ripe to collect unemployment!

Not my call, but close: really stupid male teen climbed the wall of the Bear's cage at the Prospect Park (Brooklyn, NY) Zoo, and was killed and eaten by the bruins. NYPD killed all 3 of the bears in a volly of gunfire, and found parts of the boy in 2 of them. Bears cut open by Medical Examiner, EMS basically was on a standby on the scene. EMS belief at the time was the cops shot the bear, so they would have tales to tell grand kids: "When I was a cop, I shot a bear in Brooklyn, back in the late 1980s". This got me thinking. We had a "Tour Commander" at the Communications Bureau, and whenever he was on, we'd have at least 2 Multiple Casualty Incidents happen during his 8 hours of tour, every tour. His nickname was "Captain Blackcloud" (I even gave him a plastic name tag with that name on it, which he sometimes would actually wear), and I think he was the "boss" the night of the bear attack!

Oops, I forgot: Everyone in attendance from FDNY EMS and NCPD EAB received a nice lightweight backpack, from St. John's.

Tuesday, FDNY EMS Command Station 47 (Rockaway) was given a "Hero Sandwich" luncheon (3 8-foot heros, with a bunch of "fixin's"), sponsored by the St. John's Episcopal Hospital of Far Rockaway, NY. Plaques were awarded to one of the station's Paramedics, and to an "Advanced EMT" from the Nassau County Police Department's Emergency Ambulance Bureau (4th Precinct-Hewlett, L I, NY), by the hospital CEO, Chief of the ER, and the ER Nursing Director. True to form, even with all 4 BLS and 2 ALS units having been recalled to the station, they had to remain available during the ceremony. Even having all 3 FDNY EMS Division Chiefs from Queens County Borough Command (Division 4), as well as the NCPD Division Chief in attendance didn't prevent 2 of the BLS, and one of the ALS , teams being pulled away to do separate responses. They got assigned at roughly 30 second intervals, and went in different directions on leaving Station 47. All EMS personnel assigned to Station 47 were given "EMS Week" pins by the department, as well as pins specifically designed as miniatures of the station shoulder patch. I was advised that all FDNY EMS stations that have their own design shoulder patches were getting mini-patch pins along with their EMS Week pins. As I find and attend other events, I will report on them.

Sunday, I attended the dedication of an ambulance and "First Due" car at Forest Hills (NY) Volunteer Ambulance Corps, followed by "Motorcade", and a picnic lunch, which the FHVAC supplied. For the uninformed, Motorcade is several of the nearby VACs and VFDs send their secondary ambulances, and sometimes an engine company, and First Responder cars, as well as members with "buff-mobiles". They line up behind a vehicle, or vehicles, of the hosting corps, turn on all the lights, headlights, emergency and scene floods, and activate the sirens and airhorns, as they cruise around the district at speeds approaching 20 MPH. For participants, it's fun, but noisy. The purpose of a Motorcade is to draw community attention, sometimes that there actually IS a volunteer ambulance service in the community, dedication of a new ambulance or First Responder/"Fly-Car", dedication of a new headquarters building, or the starting of a fund drive. Trust me, 10 emergency vehicles, an assortment of fly cars, and POVs with green (VAC) or blue (VFD) "Kojack" lights making noise while bunched up together, at low speed, garners attention, even if it is just calling the dispatch center to find out what the deuce is going on (dispatch will advise them, so a partial function has already been achieved).

April 12, 2008 to May 17, 2010. Somewhere, someone has a picture of himself as a very old person on the garage or attic wall! I also have seen reversals. I have had activity hungry newjacks use the words to drum up business or activity levels, and get nothing. I have had a 36 hour tour, on an ambulette (!) where nothing took me even close to a drive thru burger barn, back to back assignments. Depression is a peanut butter on almost stale rye sandwich at 3:30 AM, when finally at home on pager alert, after the coin operated candy machines at the hospital steals your last coins.

Can you imagine: O2 via BVM, patient pinking up nicely from CPR, Defib states "Check Patient! Check Patient! Charging! Stand Clear! Charging! Stand Clear! Shock Patient! Shock Pa..." Boom! Anyone remember the idiots tried blowing up a dead beached whale, which is out there on YouTube somewhere? Consider a smaller scale of a man blown up from ignited oxygenated lung material, with the meat and blood from the torso now scattered for 2 city blocks! To me, seems like great science fiction. Oxygen, as has been numerous times stated, does not explode, it supports combustion, with concession that what is burning might burn "explosively" in an oxygen-rich atmosphere.

Wait one...? Clearing from a call at University of Kansas Medical Center, then going on a transfer from Saint Lukes IN NEW YORK CITY, to St Johns in Leavenworth, KS? Did I hear that correctly?

I recently took a Continuing Medical Education (CME) class, combined BLS/ALS, where CPR and Defibrillation were done. Not only were we told not to touch the patient, but to disengage the Bag Valve Mask from the Endo Tracheal tube, as the weight of the BVM could possibly dislodge the tube during the body's convulsive motion on application of the shock.

A pair of Boobies. You do know that they are a type of sea-bird, didn't you? ...and a Great Tit.

So what? There is always the next one. One I attended, years ago, for multiple agencies (Municipal EMS, Volunteer EMS, Volunteer FD, FDNY, NYPD, NYPD Aviation, United States Park Police) was a school bus crash with 2 cars, bus on fire, perhaps 25 patients. Part of the scenario was a rope draped from a telephone pole over the bus. As the first several responders touched the bus to gain access, the field judges advised them, much to their surprise, they had just transitioned from rescuer to patient, as they had been "electrocuted". There had been one really bad thing with this simulation. One of the municipal EMS teams somehow had a paper listing the patients and their injuries/illnesses, and were going to the simpler cases. When the field judges realized this, they both disqualified the team, and notified their chief of their cheating (This would easily be at least 10 years before I became one of the municipal EMS people, myself).

A little late for this year's EMS Week, but there are several manufacturers who make both "Junior EMT" and "Junior Paramedic" stickers and plastic badges. They can be customized to the name of your agency. While I have everyone's attention:

...and then there is the classic handstand on the defib paddles in a flooded tunnel, from the bad TV show "Rescue 77". I an unable to find the video of that on YouTube.

We are, after all, talking about NJ, where if the ambulance service is not called an EMS, it is called a "First Aid Squad". (To NJ members of EMT City: Is this traditional?)

I'm speaking as a civilian, not a military EMT: If you and your partner are bleeding from injuries to the face, subsequent to a cinder block coming through the vehicle windshield, you are temporarily not Emergency Responders, you are patients!

Does anybody still use booby traped doors anymore? I'll just wait in this office for you... BOOM! Freaky coincidence: I went back to this string off an E-mail notification of someone else had posted, and the next e-mail I opened was an unsolicited ad for laboratory test tubes, beakers, and other lab glassware!

If the damage to a windshield was caused by something being thrown off an overpass, stopping at least 100 feet away should be safe for the crew on the ambulance, or even a POV. However, if you see the person at the street level, then it might behoove one to keep moving. As far as I am concerned, a broken windshield qualifies as sufficient reason to go out of service with that vehicle. No way can a response be continued, at least under supposed "normal circumstances".

After initial publication in the 1970s, has there been any updating of "The Anarchist's Cookbook"? Someone stole my copy.

Someone asked about Colonel Colt? Here is the link to the Wiki Biography. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Colt

Thank you, Lone Star. That is actually what I was referring to.