Richard B the EMT

What? Not: ???

I will try. When one faints, as when one has a seizure episode's postictal (spelling?), one looses muscle control, kind of like an ill timed really total relaxation. This includes the muscles that prevent the urine from exiting the bladder under normal conditions. I have also had patients that also released fecal matter. It is tied to the fainting, not the blood donation, but the concept of relieving oneself prior to the donation seems to be a good idea. It also occurs to me, or perhaps this is the local Blood Bank policy, that after the donation is made, the donor is first assisted to a seated position, and then paused, asked if they feel all right, before being stood up, and assisted to the "canteen" area. I mean physically assisted, with them holding on to an arm, to at least assist the patient down to the floor if they either "grey" or "black" out. I "greyed" out after a donation once. I told them I felt woozy, before I moved off the donor table, and they practically threw me back down, and elevated my legs for about 10 minutes before trying to allow me up again. After that 10 minutes, and being held for an additional 10, instead of the usual 5 in the "Canteen", I was well enough to resume my life. I have donated several times after that, and also got blood, as mentioned in my previous posting.

As someone who started working ambulances in 1973, I believe you are correct. I also admit that we could both be quite wrong. Any former Army Medic/Navy Corpsmen, who are also historians, and also date back to that era, care to chime in on this? I also remember an "Emergency!" episode, where a new LACoFD Fire Fighter/Paramedic had to be yelled at by Johnny and Roy, and the On Line Medical Control crew at Ramparts Hospital, as he was messing up, and almost killing patients, by following out-of-place Vietnam Army Medic protocols, instead of those followed by the LACoFD Fire Fighter/Paramedics.

1) A quart? Not the traditional pint? If more than the pint, no wonder you feel woozy. 2) Increase your fluid intake, primarily water, and remember, no smoking (if you do smoke, normally), and no alcoholic beverages until at least 12 hours after the donation. I am kind of "old hand" at this, as I have donated over 3 gallons over the years. My mother has donated over 8 gallons. I also have been the beneficiary of donated blood, from when I had the surgically corrected aneurysm/inbleed at my right femoral artery, secondary to the cardiac stent insertion.

"Classic" Star Trek exchange, from episode "Devil in the Dark", referencing a silicon-based creature later known as a "Horta", that had been wounded by Phaser fire: Jim Kirk... "Bones" McCoy... Kirk...

As I suspect FormerEMSLt297 was in the old Health and Hospitals Corporation EMS prior to me (I started June 3, 1985), perhaps he can confirm: 1) In the late 1970s and early 80s, the Grumman "Omni-Bus" vehicles were breaking down, or were so structurally unfit for the streets of New York City, the NYC Metropolitan Transportation Authority actually borrowed 200 (or more) spare busses from a different manufacturer, from the bus authority in Washington DC, while sidelining the majority of the Grummans. The problem was so bad, while then Mayor Ed "How'm I doin'" Koch, on a trip to the mideast, wisecracked, during a photo-op, riding a camel, that camels might be a viable alternative to the Grumman busses. 2) Wasn't there a page copied from a book by one of the first woman doctors in the city (circa 1880 or 1890)posted in the "EMS Museum" at the FDNY EMS Academy at Fort Totten, where she, and the teamster driving the ambulance, referred repeatedly to the horse drawn ambulance as a "Bus"? As of last spring (2007), the posting was no longer there.

Dust seems to be expounding on some of the points I already mentioned. I think most of us know about the ambulettes, AKA "Wheelchair Coaches". When I was still working my last private company, we had vans equipped with foldaway ramps, some on the side doors, others on the rear doors (personal preference was the side doors, as I wanted the visibility of the unblocked rear windows. As for the actual ramps, there was, to me, no real difference in the ease, or lack of, while loading/unloading) I had a pickup at a facility where I usually didn't go to. You wouldn't believe the grief I got, because I had to take up 3 spots while parallel parked, as opposed to all the other drivers who just backed in. Now what? Separate parking areas at the Emergency Room ambulance loading docks, for rear load, left side load, and right side load?

If Wendy T has been drinking, save something in that bottle for me! (Don't let my "Lady J" find out! LOL)

Dr McCoy, Star Trek (correct wording) What he was not, varied by episode.

As in the previous postings on this subject that I have made, mine is strictly anecdotal, not scientific, in nature. It seems that in fire departments where they decided, "in house", to try and increase their usefulness to the community that they serve, by adding EMS, most are good, successful departments in both fire fighting and EMS issues. On the other hand, in fire departments where the local or state elected officials decided to try and increase their usefulness to the community that they serve (the fire department's usefulness, not the politicians), by adding EMS, there is resentment on both the fire fighting and EMS sides. Nobody likes having such way different duties forced down their throats, especially when it is the combining of 2 existing agencies, each having their traditions, histories, protocols, and, perhaps, a distrust of "outsiders" represented by "the other side". While I have never personally witnessed this, I have heard it reported by others. Remember, I worked, prior to my injuries in the line of duty, out of the first combined Fire/EMS house in the FDNY. We have 4 BLS ambulances (47-Adam, 47-Boy, 47-Charlie, and 47-David), 2 ALS ambulances, 47-Willie, and 47-Zebra, which is a "HazTec" for possible hazardous materials responses, an EMS supervisor's unit (called a "Conditions Car", ours, being EMS Station 47, is "Conditions 47"), Engine 265, Ladder 121, and Fire Battalion 47. Most of what I hear, to the negative, about this combined house is from personnel NOT assigned to the house. Also, as more and more personnel get hired, after the FDNY/EMS Merger of March 17, 1996, it has become the norm, as these new guys never knew a time when there wasn't EMS in the fire service, or, if you prefer, fire fighting in the EMS. I maintain that the EMTs, the Paramedics, the "Engineers", and the "Truckees", within what each does as a specialty, are all good at their jobs, so, "It's ALL good!" Also, for those who might ask, I am an EMT in the FDNY's EMS Command, claiming municipal service from June 1985, and overall ambulance service in the volunteer, private, and municipal sectors from September of 1973.

The article says one can load it from either side. Does that mean that, if using one of the so-called "one man" type streacher, we would have to unload it from the same side as we loaded it, so we could utilize the "roll out" feature of the streacher? Almost sounds like the problem of forgetting which side of the vehicle the fueling port is on. Actually, if that is the case, when that one last unoccupied ambulance bay is against the wall of the building, someone is going to risk their back doing the off-load if the streacher is in this vehicle "the wrong way".

I agree. I can watch someone throw up with no problem (as long as it isn't landing on me), but had a partner who would go into a kind of sympathetic vomiting if he witnessed it. One of the most blase partners I had said he couldn't stand seeing a torn fingernail. Others cannot handle any injury to a 5 or under child. As Ems1997 said:

I went reaching back to 2005 to find this, already posted in the City. This involves a C-Section on a dead woman, although we were talking of field amputations. If a Paramedic team wants to risk their license or certification, the doctor giving them instructions over the Land Line or radio will probably risk his/her license, too. Sounds like a moral, as well as a legal, decision, that I would not want to put on anyone, including folks I am not too keen on (non-EMT City members, btw).

Would you qualify the Red Cross and Salvation Army "Canteen" trucks, the Red Cross relocation crews, and, as in the case of the World Trade Center, the construction workers, the construction equipment operators, the "Feds" like the FBI, FEMA, EPA, and the military, as "Second Responders"?. For all of the Feds to get in, they have to be requested by local or state authorities, so perhaps they should be considered as tertiary responders? Just wondering out loud, with no disrespect intended for the military, and disrespect intended for the EPA. There is nothing wrong with coming in second in a race, unless there were only 2 participants.

With the thought that what works in one area might not work in another, I'm mentioning that the FDNY EMS On Line Medical Control is at an FDNY EMS facility, not in an Emergency Department. We have a few sub-stations AT some EDs, if there should be an overload of calls, but most are handled in house. If a notification is needed for a call working through the OLMC, the OLMC makes the call to the ED that is going to get the patient. If the call is not actively "on line" with the OLMC, the involved ambulance crew calls dispatch over the radio, either gives the information to be relayed to the ED to the dispatcher, or tells the dispatcher to read what the crew typed into the Computer Assisted Dispatch with the "on the way to the hospital" signal update. With that last, the computer radio signal, in the "printout", would possibly read as follows... "47W3 47A3 82A H40, M 45 MVA VICTIM FX ARM BILAT 140/94 HR 150 RESP ASSIST TUBED ETA 7". (Text transmissions over the CAD/Radio from the units are always in all caps, so I wasn't "shouting".) Translation is as follows: ALS 47Willie (tour 3) and assisting unit BLS 47Adam (tour 3) transporting ALS call to hospital 40 (St. Johns Episcopal-Far Rockaway). Pt is Male, 45 years old, in a Motor Vehicle Accident, Fractured Arm both sides. Blood Pressure 140 over 94, Heart Rate150, assisted respirations via intubation, with an Estimated Time of Arrival of 7 minutes. (Not trying to be insulting, just doing an oversimplification for our new folks in the City)

Either through the pictures of, or the personal viewings of, the "Squmpers", we 5 have extrapolated the potential and/or actual flaws of the side loading ambulance. As already indicated, a number of us don't like the concept of, for lack of a better terminology, the streacher-bay of the Squmpers, we have continued it along to these side loaders. The link said the ambulance could be loaded with the streacher without endangering the crew. I doubt that, as how can it be safer when you potentially have to stand in the adjacent traffic lane to do the load, instead of staying in the same lane as the ambulance and other emergency vehicles?

Thanks, jsadin, this Noo Yawk Ciddyboy never wouldda guessed!

1) Why not? 2) Because we sometimes try to help each other. I thought that was at least part of why we are on this site. (I speak in generalities, not to specifics, and not to put anyone down)

Perhaps not so funny, but you might be Taliban if you fly helicopters under contract to NATO. From the New York Daily News...

I seem to recall the mentions on the "Squmpers" was, from most of the postings, mostly negative. Now, if I could find the concept drawings of the combined Ambulance/Engine Company/Utility Boom Arm/Garbage Collection/Law Enforcement Armored Personnel Carrier vehicle that someone sent me, and post it...

To me, "Box" refers to modular design ambulances, specifically, types one and three. It references the patient care area, as the "box" can be re-mounted onto a newer truck chassis. It also works the reverse, that a good chassis can have a newer "box" mounted on it. The "Cab" is a part of the chassis. If the reason for the new, or remount, ambulance is because, as already stated, to fulfill a grant, congrats. If it is because the newer equipment takes up all that much room, perhaps it was past time to go for the newer, larger vehicle (please remember, you start filling up space, your fuel consumption, to move the weight, also goes up). Oh, almost forgot: While I don't know where to specific geographic locations they are made, but the Demers ambulances are made somewhere in Canada.

IMERT seems to be primarily Illinois. Aside from the CERTs, does it have any similar type units in any other states, or Canadian provinces? Remember that I have friends on NYC Task Force One of the Urban Search And Rescue team. From what I just read on IMERTs site, it sounds like they might be somewhat similar to them, too. Medic36411, would you like to comment on those points?

Someone translate "Maine" to "Noo Yawkeeze: "Skiddah"?

On presumption that anyone in the Army or Marines has one job, that of doing what they were told to do (SIR!), and might not always have ordnance training. Hence, the "this side towards enemy" label is probably a good idea. However, I am told that they also had reflective "cat's eyes" on them, on the rear of the claymores. In Vietnam, the Op Force sometimes got smart, turned the claymores around, peeled the reflective devices off, and put them on the "business end". A "grunt" would see the reflective tape with his flashlight, think it was still pointed towards the enemy, possibly see the enemy in the danger zone, fire the claymore...only to end up blowing up himself and other "friendlys" in what was supposed to be a safety zone.

I am afraid. Very afraid. I understand what Ruff said!