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I am with a volunteer squad in a VERY rural area (read frontier). After almost 17 years, we know the populace pretty well and have fairly accurate spidey senses for when a call could have safety issues and when it's not a problem. Our area is is used as a training ground for state police and the nearest paid ambulance service has been going through a few years of very heavy turnover so although we know our patients and our district well, they don't. They are forever having us hold for law enforcement to clear scene that we would be comfortable going into becuase we know the folks. Mind you we are a minimu of 40 minutes for them to get up here and sometimes much longer. Last night we had a call that came out as a 19 year old female who had possibly OD's on prescription antidepression meds. Enroute we hear she has left the house and is heading for the river (no bridges here). We get within a quarter mile of the scene and are told to stage and wait for LE to to arrive and clear the scene. After 20 minutes I am really worried about whether this could be tricyclics and we could end up working a code so I get central on the radio and get them to repeat exactly how the call came in. I ask them if there is ANY reason to suggest this pt has a weapon or iffers any specific threat to my crew. They tell me law enforcement is an estimated 20 minutes out. After hearing what they have to say about no weapons and how the call came in, I have decided we are going to head in anyway when law enforcement comes screaming by (I guess the 20 minutes was the wrong estimate) They clear teh scene immediately because it is a frantic teenager who has had a miscarraige a couple of days ago and is pretty missed up , but dangerous to no one but herself. My question is, since this keeps happening up here because the staters are all new and shiney and the paid service doesn't know the area and our drunks scare them, should we just listen to our own risk assessment? There are places here we aren't going into without law enforcement. Domestic violence situation with the shooting nutjobs....we aren't crazy....but we have a way better idea than the the law enforcement people and paid service from 40 miles away what situations are threatening and which ones aren't. I don't want to be explaining to a judge and jury someday why I sat on my ass in my comfy warm truck while someone died when I had a pretty good idea my crew would not have been in any danger if we went in promptly when called. Can law enforcement stop us. Who has jurisdiction here?