Richard B the EMT

Under local protocols here in the FDNY EMS, that would be a negative. Please note the 2 words in italics, we've established that for whatever reasons, NYC is a law unto itself. There's probably other areas around this 3rd rock from the sun where it is the same, or not!

I just thought of something: How much does this thing weigh? Is anybody going to backpack it in cross country, use a pack animal, or rent a tractor/double trailer truck rig?

It may not be much, but I just used a credit card to donate 10 Australian Dollars to the Australian Red Cross. I'll let the credit card people do the international monetary adjustments for the American versus Australian dollars. Again, tell all your responders, Timmy, be safe, and hard job well done.

A former partner from one of the non 9-1-1 ambulance services I worked for in years past, who is now a (FDNY EMS Command) Lieutenant told me a story, that his VFD put out a structure fire, and was starting to board up the building, when they found a badly burned body, hidden under the door they had knocked down to gain entry to the building. The victim had been hidden under the door they had been stepping on as they entered and exited the building for a couple of hours. My associate was feeling horrible about it for a week following the event. Admittedly, it was within hours of them fighting the fire, but... Several days? Sometimes, no matter if it is someone looking for insurance $$$ or just slowly trying to track someone down, as one person checking several leads to find someone who might not want to be found (for whatever reason), it will take time. Unrelated to finding a person in a burned out house, but related to the time needed in some missing person searches, I have an ex girlfriend who was trying to find a twin brother, who had been adopted separately from her. It was her birth family actually found her, first, and that took some 30 plus years. I've sent, privately, her story file, to several members of EMT City, already. (The brother would eventually be found, too)

I think MacGyver would have used the spell check with that word, but point taken. As a case in point, I have splinted with the entertainment section of a Sunday New York Times newspaper. I have also temporarily used the foil from a gum wrapper as a car fuse, which is definitively NOT recommended.

Sounds a bit like the story of "Two One 'Deli'". Back between 1985 and 1990, the crew of NYC EMS ambulance "21 David" was on a meal break, at it's assigned street corner in the Bronx. They had just gotten back into the ambulance, and had just unwrapped their sandwiches, when several people ran up to the team, requesting assistance for a victim who had collapsed in the street, with CPR being administered to the victim. The crew actually was able to see this from the ambulance. The crew responded, "We're on meal, call 9-1-1". The crew then declined to help the person, and in the delay for another ambulance to arrive, the patient died. When the newspapers picked up on the story, they printed the "shop number" on the side of the ambulance. The crew was placed on patient contact restriction, meaning they could not work in the streets, or get any overtime, even if they wanted any. They actually were assigned to a small EMS "collectibles" store in the back of EMS headquarters, and the other 2 crews as well as the team's partner who was scheduled off, placed into a different vehicle, and given a different street corner to wait at between calls. The ambulance actually was kept at EMS headquarters in the Maspeth section of Queens, for a month, in fear that any crew seen in that vehicle would be believed to be the involved crew, and possibly have an attempt of some form of "Street Justice" done to them. Don't hold me to this, as my memory might be faulty on this, but, after a Departmental trial, they were fired, and the New York State Department of Health canceled their certifications. The reason for the title "21 Deli" is a different phonetic for the "D" letter designation.

If going public, mention that the Fire Fighters face the dangers of flame and smoke. The LEOs face being shot at, stabbed, bitten by both animals and humans, or hit by cars who's drivers are not paying attention, while the LEOs are simply directing traffic. Those in EMS are at risk of catching a big list of diseases from the very persons they are treating and transporting. Each job has specifics that are part of the risk of what they do. All are at risk when traveling at higher than posted speed, at Emergency Status, but whoever gets hurt in the ways I have described, or other ways not yet mentioned, in the performance of their jobs, it is members of the EMS system that takes care of them.

All I know is, one of them stepped on my iguana, which now is a reptile dysfunction. (lol)

If it was co-created at GWU, check with someone possibly working there as an Associate Professor by the name of Paul Maniscalco. He used to be a Chief in the EMS Command of the FDNY, and is a past president of the NAEMT (might also have been a contact for the NREMT). If he is still there, he is knowledgeable on almost anything on EMS and Homeland Security. (Side note: In the Sly Stallone movie, "Daylight" the concept of entering the tunnel via the vent fans was Maniscalco's concept and creation as a part of a table-top MCI drill)

Perhaps we could stock it with the Whacker kit found in the string: http://www.emtcity.com/index.php?showtopic...mp;#entry205835

1) Garlic and Wolfsvein (spelling?) are used to deter vampires, and the stake through it's heart kills it (didn't any of you ever watch "Buffy"?). 2) Silver Bullets are used against Werewolves, but are most effective when fired by the werewolf's lover. However, in the classic tellings of the Lycanthropic tails, the werewolf usually is killed just as it bites and rips open the jugular vein of the lover who shot it as the couple's last conscious deeds. 2-A) Silver bullets were the ammunition used by the Lone Ranger (cue up the overture to "William Tell"), as a reminder of how expensive a life could be, as well as when he had to shoot, to make the shot accurate. 3) Napalm, as a firestarter, I think, might be used well against zombies, but don't hold me to that, as I have stockpiled wolfsvein, garlic, and silver bullets. Perhaps this could be used on the "Mine Proof Ambulance" as mentioned in this other string: http://www.emtcity.com/index.php?showtopic=6232&hl=

Once again, I show my age. Gay used to mean happy, so why wouldn't Chuck Norris, in THAT sense, be gay? I come from a rough neighborhood. The gangs used to steal hubcaps from moving vehicles! I remember the old gang: Stumpy, Lefty, Three Finger, and the guys had some good nicknames, too. I wonder how long it would take them to leave that monster up on blocks having stolen the wheels?

I posit the following: 1) A driver suddenly discovering an emergency vehicle following them will either do the correct thing, or panic and do something potentially damaging to the EV, their own POV, and all concerned potentially physically damaging to their bodies. 2) While they are not supposed to, I have witnessed LEOs and EMS crews, in their respective marked department vehicles, both pop on the emergency lights just to clear an intersection, and turn them off again, or, when there is no cross traffic, simply do a yield right of way, and go through the intersection even when the traffic light is red against them. They then continue down the street at lower than the posted speed, making it obvious they are not on a response. 3) I ask if it is just my observation, or do more people, at least in the more heavily populated areas, where there are more vehicles, move over or stop for ambulances when they are not in Emergency mode, and take turns jumping in front of the ambulances when they are? 4) On limited access roadways like highways, when crowded, when an ambulance is trying to get through at Emergency status, at least one driver, and usually more, will attempt tailgating on the ambulance to try to get through the traffic a bit quicker, not realizing the danger they place themselves in. 5) As I post this, there are investigations going on for the plane crash near Buffalo, NY, and another somewhere in Europe (I missed the news casts so I don't know where it happened). Not all aircraft commanders, either civilian or military, can have Captain "Sully" Sullenberger's luck and/or skill to land in something like the Hudson River, in the middle of a densely built up area with large population potentially at risk from an aircraft falling on top of them from the sky.

I think he had an encounter with a "wackermobile", such as we've disected in other strings on EMT City website.

I have a minimum of 3 reasons I'd never get one of those bags. 1) Cost. 2) No fold-up portable stretcher. 3) The aforementioned lack of a kitchen sink.

A specific situation: An ambulance is sent to one end of the district, high priority call, L&S engaged. Just as they pull into the block, they got canceled, and redirected to the other end of the district, also a high priority call, L&S engaged, but get canceled again, just as they got onto the block. Local newspaper reports on the ambulance responses, but just calls it "joyriding from one end of town to the other". Nobody from the newspaper contacted the ambulance service to find out what really happened. As I was on the wheel that day for those 2 calls, I am still, over 10 years later, sore about it. Even though I was not mentioned by name, many knew when my shift was, and could have besmirched my name for "reckless driving".

Is goot dat dere ain't no more!

This just in, from the New York State Volunteer Ambulance and Rescue Association, with contact information included, as it seems to drive the BRT (big red truck), one needs a CDL (Commercial Drivers Licence) in New York State. 1) New York State Department of Motor Vehicles 2) Fire Association of the State of New York 3) New York State Association of Fire Chiefs

I first had to look it up. Turns out I have not had this procedure. As per the "Wisegeek" site, at http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-osteotomy.htm :

Sounds like the guy who dropped a bunch of coins on 5th street, but is looking for them on 6th, because the light is better!

Firedoc5 said Sounds like the victim didn't have a leg to stand on. (Oh, I can be so bad, sometimes!)

I guess we are all in agreement, no matter what the rules of the road are, either in law, or perceived, there is always going to be a big difference between "Supposed to be" and "Reality".

Unless the 9-1-1 E (enhanced 911) system flags a phone number as a frequent caller, there are people who know our "Key" words, like "unconscious", "heart attack", or "somebody shot" followed by hanging up the phone, that no follow up questions can be asked, and usually ends up with an ambulance being dispatched at highest priority levels of response. The humorous side has the often told tale of an ambulance crew being met at curbside by a person standing there with packed bags, yelling at them, "Can't you idiots see I'm having a cardiac arrest, here?" I mention I learned to drive, before I even knew what an EMT was, by being in a car with a "Student Driver" sign attached, let loose on the neighborhood with a "qualified instructor" sitting next to me, with dual sided brake and gas pedals. I understand some driving schools even have steering wheels on both sides, too. Yes, there comes a time the Noob is going to have to drive their first call at emergent status, so there is no definitive way of getting them the experience of "actual road conditions". As long as there exists Emergency Vehicle Operations Courses (EVOC), at least the agencies have a way of preparing the Noob for what is to come. (Before someone asks, a 9-1-1-E system has an almost failsafe device that locks in the caller's phone number, and has the address of the telephone number on a display screen, or the Public Safety Answering Point's computer screen. If someone calls, gives skimpy information, and hangs up, at least the responding LEO, FD, and EMS teams have an address to go to, even if it is that of the caller, and possibly not the address where the help is needed. I say "almost" as calls from cell phones rarely are at their owners home address, but with the advent of Global Positioning Systems being a regular feature of newer cell phones, the authorities can usually find where the phone is, to send help to the area.)

Item 1. That depends on where the incident happens. I know New York protocols, as that is where I have been trained and work, but do not know Wisconsin protocols, which is where this episode is supposed to take place. Per my local protocols, which might or might not be the same in Wisconsin, spinal precautions will be done on a spinal long board, not a Scoop. Use the Scoop, the NY State Department of Health (DoH) is going to come after you for operating out of protocols, and could end up with either or both a fine and loss of certification. Item 2. Can I refer you to your local Psychiatric Advisory board for referrals? (LOL)

Don't hold me to this, but someone was indicted for manslaughter for passing the disease along, knowing he had it. The Law and Order show used the concept as a springboard for a storyline, too.