Richard B the EMT

ParamedicMike is on the right path, even if you don't have any of the paperwork from when you were overseas. At minimum, I would send (certified mail with return receipt), copies of your orders sending you overseas, and the orders returning you stateside, with a cover letter indicating the attempt to maintain your certification/licence while you were deployed, to your home state's DoH.

1) That is why it is called, by my training, anyway, a "Distracting Injury". They seem to cause tunnel vision in EMS crews, distracting them from other, and potentially worse, injuries. 2) OR...call the caller by the catch all name of "Caller", as I was taught to do, when I worked in EMD.

Most of this string has been above my pay grade. I'll only mention, during my stint at one of the IFT services, I got into trouble for doing my job. Call reports were required, but certain facility charge nurses took exception that I, a lowly EMT, would take a BP before loading the patient, as whatever result they had obtained could be taken to the bank, my reading was not needed, no matter how long after they took it and wrote it down on the transfer papers. The boss wouldn't go to bat for us, but suggested we wait until we had the patient aboard the ambulance. We ended up having to roll at least around the corner, out of sight of the facility staff, as at least one of them complained that we didn't immediately start towards the ER after loading. She actually came out to the parking lot, and banged on the doors!

First, the obvious, you have to be a New York State EMT or Paramedic to apply for the EMS Command of the FDNY. If you're an EMT, you can apply for advancement to Paramedic after a set minimum time, which I don't know. You will have to eventually apply for civil service status, sometimes between 6 months and the first year in title. For advancement to Lieutenant, you take another civil service test, and if you make the list, hope they take you. Oh, you have to (now) be a Paramedic, either when filing for the test, or completed the Paramedic class before appointment to the rank. Again, a civil service test for advancement to Captain. Chiefs are appointed at the pleasure and descretion of the Fire Commissioner. I nearly forgot. From when EMS was removed from the NYC Health and Hopspitals Corporation management, and placed under the management of the FDNY, the fire guys call leaving the EMS to become a Fire Fighter as a "Promotion". Fire Fighters are trained to NYS DoH "Certified First Responder-Defibrillator" qualified, which is a title that takes less time than becoming an EMT to earn. As for job related higher education, it just looks good on the resume. National Registry EMTs are not allowed to wear the "sunburst", and it seems only Chiefs that publish articles have things like MPH listed after their names.

On TV? Must be Public Broadcasting System. As for the 2 guys in "Hall Pass", they were also in that status, as was the central character in "Boogie Nights".

As those of us who are paid personnel feel we don't get paid enough, I am still amazed that someone thought we had enough money to sue us. Cease and desist order, perhaps, but monetary?

There is a scene in "Hall Pass" with 2 full frontal nude men, but it was integral to the script.

I was just advised of an update to this story. Seems the shooter just got shot! NY Post story, at http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/man_charged_in_emt_death_critically_KF1ZddKY8dKRsW0WLLRcvJ My apologies for some gibberish appearing at the end of the posting, I can't get it off.

Notify the facility floor nurse in charge of your observation, especially if the friend is behaving significantly different than what you consider their normal. My Brother In Law works at the nearest hospital to me, as an XRay Technician. My grandmother collapsed from what later would be diagnosed as Phlebitis, making her delirious, and acting possibly senile. When my Brother In Law went to see her in the ER, and saw the ER crew treating her as if her family had just tried to foist off a senile old woman on them, he advised them, in no uncertain terms, that this was Altered Mental Status from her regular, and as such, to do something for her. They did, discovered the Phlebitis, and treated her for it. (FYI, this happened the day after I had just become an EMT, May of 1974!)

Cannot guide you on that one. Your ambulance crew might be standing by for a call in a "Nice" neighborhood, but be dispatched to a "Bad" one. Just remember that even in a neighborhood described as "Evil" has hard working folks living there, who, for an assortment of reasons, cannot move out, but because one person commits a particularly vicious crime, all in the neighborhood get labeled as being evil. On a different approach, take heed why Willie Sutton robbed banks, and most criminals prefer good or rich neighborhoods. On questioning by the Press Corps, after he was arrested, why he robbed banks, Mr. Sutton replied, "That's where the money is!" As for infornation on ride-alongs with the FDNY EMS Command, contact:

(Obtained from a Veteran's Group. Original source unknown by poster Richard B, the EMT)

1) While the general impression is that the FDNY EMS doesn't like the concept of Volunteers in their coverage, they tried activating the VACs within the city, after what little snowplowing that had been done plowed in the VACs, before they (FDNY) reached out to Long Island, and New Jersey. 2) Best of my knowledge, nobody from Sanitation got sacrificed. Nasty-grams into their service records, perhaps, but no firings. 3) The Chief in Charge of FDNY's EMS Command was removed from post, and reduced in rank, but it was just the timing of announcing it made it seem as if it was storm response related. He actually got removed and reduced for violation of a NYC Board of Conflicts rule: He was being paid by the company that makes the RAD 57 Carbon Monoxide blood gas detectors, for which he, as head of the FDNY EMS, had signed the purchase orders for those units.

9115, I am unable to access the NY Times link provided, probably because they have started charging for allowing such accessing.

I don't know of any bipolar, but some may note my own postings not being consistant. This might be attributed to different keyboards, one on my old Dell, the other, my new Toshiba. Got spellcheck to work on only one of them.

AK, I am amazed by how many of our colleagues literally do not read the fine print, sometimes. So many walked into that one, left foot forward, and smiling!

The possibility definitely exists.

I believe I remember you, and an Evil Emperor, too, from the old chatroom.

Some federal laws are written in a way that allows state or local laws to counter them. Federal laws say you can put up a radio antenna on your house, but the condo you live in may say that you cannot. Federal law says I can have a "Police Scanner" in my house or car, NY State law says I need a permit for such radio in my car (and no local or state Police office I have contacted seems to have knowledge of how to obtain such permit, by agency, @ $25.00 per permit). Now, if I understand the OP, the "stop" took place in an area known for transporting illegal immigrants and/or "recreational pharmaceuticals". The LEO was probably within both rights and duty to stop any vehicle (s)he felt might be in violation of either of those categories. There doesn't seem to be any ironclad answer re letting the LEO see the paperwork. Unit activity log, perhaps, but not transfer papers or the Ambulance Call Report.

Anyone remember that cop versus EMT video from some months back? 1) LEOs have firearms, most EMS crews do not. 2) Even if found guilty in good ol' boy Judge Bubba's court, YOU are the one going to have a record, and the expense of trying to have the record expunged. 2-A) If you are in a state/provence where, when renewing your certification/license, you must declare any arrest record, until the expungement, you're going to have trouble. 3) Any interaction between LEO, FD, and EMS agencies, other than sanctioned things like boxing matches or hockey games for charity, always has the potential of starting a "battle of the badges". As I have observed over many years, these "battles" end up embarrassing the direct participants, their respective agencies, and generate negative goodwill for long periods to follow.

When last I did an interstate transfer, to either New Jersey or connecticut, from my home state of New York, it was before the wide spread of cell phones, and the HIPAA laws had not yet been enacted. As we were from another state, we didn't run emergent, followed (for the most part) speed laws, and didn't go through any red lights. I do, recall, that one time I got lost, and saw a trooper going the other way, I stopped and did turn on my Emergency beacon and flashers as a request for help. After the trooper realized we didn't have an emergency, he actually led us a part of the way to our destination. Hmmm, anyone remember Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLouise in Cannonball Run? They used an ambulance to run the scam of a patient transport at high speed in a cross country race.

Just a thought, but, if you wear the service/department patch on the Left sleeve, the level of training patch on the Right sleeve, if you don't have a required pin on the points of the collar, perhaps a flag pin on the left collar point? I have both US flag pins, and crossed flags (US/Star of Life, US/Israel, US/Ireland, and somewhere in the collection, US/New York State). Almost forgot, I have at least one crossed flag pin that is generic FD/Star of Life.

As all EMD personnel in the FDNY EMS are EMTs, supposedly, they already know. EMD folks can work overtime on ambulances, but EMTs assigned to ambulances can NOT work overtime in EMD, due to the training needed there

A long time ago, I was partnered with a woman, on an IFT and private call service ambulance. This was my first time with this particular woman, whom all the other EMTs and non EMT Ambulette drivers seemed to like a lot (we sometimes ran the 'lette drivers on the ambulances, with the EMT in the back with the patients, of course). Our call was in a bad part of town, in a building that seemed to say, next mugging in 5 minutes. I freely admit I am no fighter, so I was wondering if someone approached us with evil on their minds, how I would protect her (old school thinking, perhaps, this was sometime in the 1977-1980 time frame). Suddenly, in seeming defiance of my prayers, I heard the unmistakable "snic" of a lock-back knife blade going into work mode. Initially, I froze up, but then I slowly turned around, to find my partner that I wouldn't know how to protect, sticking the biggest open Buck Knife I recall seeing, into her equipment holster. I was going to protect her?

I believe the wording could be towards the rape victim's perceivement of such exam.