Richard B the EMT

I have posted the following request for information on www.justhelicopters.com, and will post any replies I get.

I must interject here, when the NYPD effects a Medevac, they supply the helo, pilot, and an air observer, FDNY EMS supplies the EMT or Paramedic. Also, the choice to shut down the rotors doesn't seem to be available to the EMS side, rather, it seems to be the pilot or NYPD makes that decision.

George Carlin

When one is busy doing nothing, how do you know when you're finished?

When I had been involved with loading a patient onto an NYPD helicopter, it was on level ground, in a large parking lot, with access controlled by the LEOs, and specifically guided in to the craft by the pilot and my lieutenant, from the helo's right side. The rotors were turning, and all I could hear close by was the helo's motors. I understand in other jurisdictions, or simply decided by the helo's operators, they won't allow anyone to approach the "chopper" until the blades stop turning. I understand this only adds 5 to 7 minutes of the aircraft being on the ground, with stopping and restarting the motors and rotors, even with a quick loading. Let's compare local ways. Please post what area are you in, who supplies the helo, and do they primarily do "Hot" or "Cold" Landing Zone loadings/unloadings?

Hmmm, you just reminded me... KED and IDEA training at FDNY EMS also does that method of teaching, with a car bench seat, and the scenario always is the car was split in half in the accident, taking the steering wheel and dashboard somewhere else. Years before, when my VAS first got the original KEDS, one of the guys teaching it's usage took the bulb out of his personal car's dome light, sat his teenage son behind the wheel, and had us put the KEDS on his son, at night, in the dark! No flashlight, either. I don't recommend it, but I must have done it right, as he "passed" me.

Hey, parabrandi: Why are you holding back? Tell us what you really feel!

First, my condolences to his family, and the extended family of his co-workers. Second, as there are so many things can go wrong at an L-Z, let alone the discussions on when to fly a patient, when details become available as to what happened, let us know, so if we're at an L-Z of our own, we might be safer for what the NTSB tells us.

Should I be worried, because I remember?

Which? The concept, or the product? LOL

Three elderly ladies meet up at a street corner. Said the first, Said the second, Said the third, "Mrs. Jones" said the doctor, "that pain in your leg is just old age". Mrs. Jones responded back, angrily, "My other leg is just as old, and it DOESN'T hurt!" 3 other ladies were at the final game at Shea Stadium, and had smuggled in a bottle of Jack Daniels, which was now empty. What inning is it, and how many are on base? keep scrolling Almost there... Bottom of the "Fifth", and the bags are loaded!

Some of the neighborhoods I go into, I always make sure the Force is with me, as in the Police Force. Suzanne? She still looks good, but as she is not licenced as a dietician, I don't think I'll follow her diets. She's pushing Yoga, now? I guess I am not up on current events. She has always had a million megawatt smile. Then, again, "Dark Helmet" was never depicted as being anything but a dim bulb! Will we ever find out if my Schwartz is bigger than yours?

Just coincidentally, I just got an E-Mail from one of those "where are your classmates now?' sites, and the woman I referred to is now a member of that site. We now resume our regularly scheduled broadcast

Sounds like they are connected. I'm wired for that. Juiced, even. It is, however, noted that this is generating a lot of high tension buzz on this string. (By the way, was that Yoga, Yoda, or Yogurt?)

If there is a difference with Paramedics who cannot pronounce their "R"s, then Elmer Fudd just got pwomoted to being a pawamedic. And the issue of Single Paramedic, or "Mensa-Medic" as I know of them, versus a 2 Paramedic Team is somewhere on this site, I know as I started at least one of them.

That"Puke Green" actually has a name. As school buses are "School Bus Yellow Chrome" in color, that icky green is called "Fire Engine Lime Green Chrome", if you can believe it. I have heard issues with any reflective garments, specifically, if you are bent over a patient at certain angles, the reflective striping is at such a sharp angle to overtaking headlights, no real reflectiveness happens. They won't see you until you stand up, which is when the 60 MPH car is 2 car lengths away from you. Also, don't depend on highway flares. I'll qualify this as to my own area, New York City, where nobody seems to realize what they are. We know they are warning devices, to the infamous "Them," they are targets to be hit by the car wheels. I give a lit 1/2 hour flare a life expectancy of 5 minutes before some idiot driver hits them. I broke down one time, and put a flare behind my ambulance. A truck driver pulled in back of me, and stepped down to ask directions, parking directly over the flare. I don't mind telling you I was screaming at the trucker, because he was driving a gasoline tanker truck!

Back in 1968, on Rowan and Martin's Laugh In, they did a bit where a woman got a bilateral hand transplant, one hand from an FBI agent, the other from a CIA agent. "Neither hand lets the other hand know what it is doing".

Great! You just got permission from the patient to call them by their first name. Outstanding! Do so. Just don't do it without their permission, is all I am saying. Just a notation, here. In the early winter of 2001, at a "Doo-Wop/Oldies" Concert held at York College, I met up with a woman who had been a year ahead of me in Junior High School, and a soprano in the school chorus ( I had been a tenor). She, herself, was now a vocal music teacher, in charge of her own chorus. As her chorus had been included in the concert, I made a point of calling her "Ms ****", out of deference to her position as a teacher, with her students standing next to her. I was wearing a so-called "Job Shirt" (Check the Galls Catalog), identifying me as a member of the FDNY EMS Command. Yet, she insisted on calling me by my first name. 1) Would you call a former peer, now an instructor, by their first name, in front of those they teach? That is not the way I was brought up, and besides, even when not on the job, it seems disrespectful, at least to me. 2) Should not the courtesy be returned? Apparently, she didn't think so, or at least as extended towards me. (In disclosure, she did bitch at me, when I beat her out by one point to being the highest score in vocal music in the school the year she graduated; perhaps she still held a grudge?)

Unfortunately, I have also heard that about the blinking, flashing, strobing, and revolving lights on all the emergency vehicles. It's like a homing beacon.

Can anyone enlighten me as to what year and conversion company that Oldsmobile Ambulance is? There was a time I used to ride a low roof version of it.

Is or are synchronized shocks just a deliverable shock the machine times to fire at the correct moment of the PQRST sequence of the patient? Remember, I am BLS, but have seen the setting on the defibs with "through the paddles quick read" function. Also, I usually carry it for the Paramedics, but don't play with it, as I'm "afeared o' hurtin' meself".

Definitely shocking, but the recovery was charged up. Guess they know how to conduct themselves. (I'd use more jokes but I think I have completed that circuit)

I was party to similar. In, perhaps 1986, I was detailed out of my usual assignment (a call-taker in EMD) and was working an NYC EMS ambulance out of Elmhurst Hospital base. My partner and I, and a Paramedic ambulance crew, were dispatched to an "ARREST" call, to find a 70 something male down on the floor of a small living room. My partner and I started CPR, and were then joined by the Paramedic team, who put the patient on the EKG, started lines, and followed all appropriate ALS protocols for field treatment of an Arrest. It seemed they poured half the drug box down the IVs. Unrelated to the actual treatment, my partner started to slide his legs under the couch to position himself a bit better, and a large dog, not seen by us, started growling at him. On my side, I laughed a bit at the situation, but then felt the need to position myself a bit more comfortably, and another dog, also unseen, started growling at me. Somebody in the household called the dogs away, and put them into another room. So much for the 10 second scene safety survey! After about a half hour, the Paramedics, seeing asystole on the EKG, following protocol to terminate rescusitive measures, contacted the OLMC for permission (One of the few times the NYC EMS is required to do a "Mother/Father, May I"), and permission was granted. We started disconnecting the tubes, the BVM, and cleaning up the mess we had generated. Last to come off the patient were the EKG cables. That's when we noticed there was a heart rate being registered by the EKG machine. Wouldn't you say that a heart rate of 6 is just a bit Bradycardic? We re-started CPR, reconnected everything, and the Paramedics re-established the LL contact with OLMC, opening with identifying themselves by radio designation, and calling themselves the "Miracle Workers". The Paramedics then dumped the other half of the drug box into the guy, a late arriving supervisor brought the stretcher over, we "packaged", loaded, and flew to Elmhurst, CPR the entire time. My partner and I brought another patient into Elmhurst about an hour and a half later. The ER, we saw, had our previous CPR patient on a ventilator, but his heart was apparently doing fairly good on it's own. I have no clue, unfortunately, if he survived, and if he did, if it was a decent "Quality of Life" save.

This just in... Mount Vernon NY Fire Department just graduated a class of 8 new fire fighters, but 4 of them have a record. Video report from WABC-TV7, New York New York http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=...&id=6440091

OUCH! Those were so bad... I'm going to steal them and claim I created them!