Richard B the EMT

"Unit 3 to base, c'mon?" (Oops, that actually was me, during the 1970s CB radio craze!)

I include a link here, to the Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Care Hospital, here in New York City. To the best of my knowledge, it is the biggest and perhaps best cancer care and research facility on the east coast of the United States. I also add my prayers for your family. www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/44.cfm

I will simply hope that others with this alleged level of intellegence are kept far away from a defib unit.

I'm going to find out some information, but remember that it will be as shown under New York State law, and might not apply in the jurisdiction you work in. Historically, the information I am going to get all started at the birth of the "Woodstock Nation". I have sent the following letter to the New York State Department of Health, and will publish whatever answer they send me. To whom it may concern: Following the original Woodstock Concert in, I think, 1969, new rules were implemented, to the effect that for a set number of people at an event, there would be a set minimum number of either or both ambulances or medical personnel. Could you enlighten me as to those specific groupings, or the number(s) of the rule(s) or law(s) governing this? I am helping a person in another state who might be providing medical care at an event get an idea on what he should do in advance of that event. Thank you in advance for any help you can give me in this matter. Respectfully, Richard B

Unfortunately, I have to do a little badmouthing of my colleagues. For the last few times I went for refresher training, while playing victim in the patient physical evaluation classes, nobody seems to be checking for either wristband, necklace, or ankle band medical alert devices. I wear a necklace type (organ donor, cardiac), and nobody ever found it!

Waitaminut!!! Didn't we have this item on EMT City, roughly a year and a half ago?

"I lost my phone number. Can I have yours?"

As inferred on other strings, a "rig" is one of many nicknames for the ambulance vehicle. I live in an area where they seem to always be called a "Bus", but I don't remember why the people do this.

Remember, home personal computers were way overpriced when first made available to the public. I don't think I will be getting one of those medical alerting "thumb drive" type devices soon, as per other's statements, most ambulance services and hospitals near me lack the equipment to utilize them. This does not mean I will rule them out completely, but whoever the comedian was who said, "I'm not buying any new electronic stuff until they stop inventing, and I feel I can catch up," I agree with him.

I'll ask again: Why a Fish finder?

As promised, from New York State Vehicle and Traffic Law, Number #375, subsection 35, and 35A. 35. Tires. (a) The commissioner may establish standards for the manufacture, regrooving or retreading of tires which are produced or sold in this state, and for the use of tires on vehicles operated in this state. ( No tire shall be manufactured, distributed, offered for sale or sold in this state if it does not comply with the standards established by the commissioner pursuant to paragraph (a) of this subdivision. A violation of this paragraph shall be punishable as a misdemeanor. © No person shall operate a motor vehicle or a trailer on a public highway if such vehicle is equipped with tires that do not meet the standards established by the commissioner pursuant to paragraph (a) of this subdivision. 35-a. It shall be unlawful to operate a motor vehicle or trailer equipped with tires having metal objects protruding from the tire tread upon any public highway. The prohibition contained in this section shall not apply to pneumatic tires containing metal type studs, the diameter of which studs inclusive of the stud casing does not exceed three-eighths of an inch and which do not protrude beyond the tread surface of such tires more than three thirty-seconds of an inch and the contact area of which does not exceed three-fourths of one per cent of the total nominal contact area of said tires determined by multiplying the circumference of the outer most edge of tread times the tread width, except that no vehicle equipped with such tires, other than school buses and state or municipally-owned vehicles, may operate on a public highway during the period from the first day of May to the fifteenth day of October, inclusive.

I don't remember who gave me my "training" for the radiation beepers, but it was something to the effect of, "If the thing starts beeping, take it off, place it down as a marker for hazmat to set up a 'zone' perimeter, and get the hell out, while calling it in on your radio." Need I say that this was not in a classroom, but might have been told me by the guy I relieved on the ambulance?

FYI: FDNY and the FDNY EMS have a pager sized radiation detector that at least one crewperson is supposed to wear on any and all calls. But, supporting the observation of "only seeing the mushroom cloud", many of my people leave it on the vehicle visor, protecting the vehicle quite well, but not the people.

I was stuck, while in my minivan, in a major traffic jam on the "Belt" Parkway this afternoon, as the "Pothole Patrol" had 2 of the 3 lanes blocked. The jam backlog was easily 5 miles long when I got jammed (of course I hear it in the traffic report AFTER I got stuck). An ambulance from a company I used to work for was trying to proceed down the road, L&S, with not much success, and the usual "Trailgaters" almost getting into accidents trying to follow him (Somewhere on the city is a string where we have a rather large discussion of these illegal followers). At the time of this posting, we still have heavy residual of a snow and ice storm, with my driveway in such sturdy snow and ice coating, my minivan is not leaving tracks in 3 inches of the stuff, but I remembered something taught me in an EVOC (Emergency Vehicle Operating Course). Your vehicle can get bogged down in snow, ice, or mud on the shoulder of a roadway, and also get a flat. A flat? How? When the litterbugs throw glass bottles, or even plastic ones, out of their cars, they land on the shoulder. When they get run over, they shatter or splinter, and can cut up even steel belted radial tires, just as good as stabbing them with my Leatherman tool. If I am forced into jumping curbs, or running on the shoulder, as someone else mentioned, I reduce speed, and use the siren as needed to alert other drivers that I am there. I'd use extreme caution as, no matter which side of the road I'm riding the shoulder on, there is still going to be some fool thinking that they are doing the correct thing by getting out of my way, and pull out in front of me.

My mom and I agree, that is direct, short and sweet, and right to the point!

Check your local protocols before responding to me with this contribution. Unless the patient is a critical transfer, why are the L&S even in use? As for lights without the siren, that would depend on the patient's condition, while enroute from the street scene or the patient's location to the ED. Never, no let me emphasize, NEVER would I use siren without the lights, they lights make it easier for the drivers, who have no idea an emergency vehicle is operating within a hemisphere of them, to spot them. They just look around, confused, when they see no lights but hear a siren, even, or especially when, you are 10 foot off their rear bumper. Sidenote: Some child on a city bus was driving me crazy the other day, when I was going home. Seems he was playing some PS3 or gameboy electronic toy, with the sound effect of a siren, and I damn near twisted my head off looking around for an approaching emergency vehicle. It wasn't until he shut it down at his stop that I realized that I had been "had".

Looks like a kind of cross reference to the favorite movie lines string: "Quint! We're gonna need a bigger boat!"

Fish must be smarter than people, after all, don't they travel in schools?

My vote is with the "Bag, tag, and supervisor's attention" way. I wouldn't flush it, as there is always possibility that the cannabis may have been tampered with, and the CSIs might be able to halt the distribution of the tainted stuff that might cause deaths to other users of the "recreational pharmaceuticals" by testing the stuff you turned in.

If you can read this, thank a teacher If you can read this, you're too damn close! What? Me worry? In case of rapture, this car will be unmanned (I had to have that one explained to me, by the way, different religion)

"May the force be with you" (Star Wars) "May the Schwartz be with you" (SpaceBalls) "Warning- I don't stop for anything" (Bumpersticker on Dark Helmet's spaceship, "SpaceBalls") "Go ahead...Make my day!" (Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan, in one of the Dirty Harry movies) "Of all the gin joints in all the world, she has to walk into mine" "If you can play it for her, you can play it for me! Play it, Sam! Play 'As Time Goes By'" (Rick Blaine, as portrayed by Humphrey Bogart, "Casablanca") "I am shocked...SHOCKED...to find that there is gambling in this establishment!" "Here are your winnings, captain". (Casablanca) "Major Strasser has been shot! Round up the usual suspects!" (Claud Rains, "Casablanca") "Louie, this looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship." (Bogart, "Casablanca") "Is this the end of Rico?" (Edward G. Robinson, "Little Ceaser") "Who put the Tribbles in the quadro-triticale?" (William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, "Star Trek" episode, "The Trouble With Tribbles) "We beamed them over to the engine room of the Klingon Ship before they went to Warp. We figured that, there, they'd be no 'Tribble' at all." (James Doohan as Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott, "Star Trek" episode, "The Trouble With Tribbles") "I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer!" "You're a healer. There's your patient. That's an order!" (Exchange between DeForest Kelly as Dr McCoy, and Shatner as Kirk, "Star Trek" episode, "Devil in the Dark") "Fascinating." (Leonard Nimoy as Lt. Commander Spock, numerous episodes, "Star Trek") "My wife, attend me." (Mark Leonard as Ambassador Sarek, "Star Trek" episode, "Journey to Babel", and in at least one episode of "Star Trek-The Next Generation") (In Russian accent) "Absolutely I will not interfere, Keptain!" (Walter Koenig as Ensign Pavel Andrevitch Chekoff, "Star Trek-The Motion Picture" "Indeed?" "Indeed." "Indeed!" (Michael Judge as T'elk, different inflection for different purposes while talking with other characters, "Star Gate-SG1") (In slight Spanish accent) "Lucy? I'm home!" (Johnny Five, the robot, in "Short Circuit" and "Short Circuit 2)

I am going to reiterate with qualifications, what I stated earlier. This is my own wording. Under my local BLS protocols in the FDNY EMS (specific enough, I hope), give the orange juice. If the patient is not mentating ($0.50 word for mentally processing things), to the point that the patient is unable to hold the glass, the EMT can safely presume that the patient will be unable to swallow. Nothing by mouth should be administered, as this now creates the potential for aspiration, on top of whatever all else is wrong with the patient. Package the patient for transport, and make the decision when to transport. Which is the shorter time frame, transport time to the nearest appropriate ED, or ETA of the nearest available Paramedic crew to your location, or an intercept by the Paramedics on the way to the ED? Follow accordingly.

"You're my boy, Blue!" (Old School, possibly others and Will Ferrel)

Is Jeff Foxworthy and/or Larry the Cable Guy EMTs?

Then you probably have no clue as to what "Wind Chill Factor" is. Consider yourself blessed in your lack of that knowledge.