Emergency Services Mortality?

[sevenball]

ruff, sounds to me like you're just arguing because you want to be right. Regardless of what your views on the topic are, you cannot sway my thoughts.

I've been in EMS for 18 years. I've seen quite a bit. Again, if you think that there isn't any grey area in this world, then you need to find a desk job. Exceptions can be found for every rule. You seem to be one that will only focus on the exceptions in order to make an argument in your own favor. Let's stop the school yard antics, there is no place for it here.

Big rigs, small rigs, small cars, yours, mine and ours ALL run red lights. As a whole, big rigs obey the traffic laws, and in most cases have far more training than you or I would ever dream of having behind the wheel. In most cases, accidents involving big rigs are our fault, not theirs.

Anxiety is far more common when sirens are blaring behind you then if you see a tractor trailer driving behind you. Will it cause anxiety if a big rig gets on your fender, sure will. the same anxiety that will be caused if the geo metro is on your bumper. Noone likes to be tailgaited, big rig or not. We've all had experiences where things have gone bad with big rigs, but thats no reason to make a blanket statement that big rigs run red lights like ambulances do. Where are you're statistics that say the majority of bad accidents are caused by big rigs?

I've responded to cessna plane crashes before. Does that mean I won't fly because all planes crash?

[dougd]

dougd, I can't buy into that argument either. Hauling freight is a completely different occupation. Big rig drivers don't blow through red lights, they don't create the anxiety that an ambulance does running with lights and sirens.

Nope, big rig drivers shouldn't be blowing through red lights... and neither should EMS. But the requirements to get a commerical driver's license require more traning than I need to drive a vehilce where I'm basically authorized to break traffic laws.

Ideally, we should be stopping and ensuring that we have been given the right-of-way by the other motorists. Yet one doesn't have to search too hard to find a news report about an ambulance blowing an intersection at a high rate of speed.

I know of five different suburban fire departments in Northeast Ohio that have implemented new transport procedures within the past 18 months which limit what sort of patients they should be running hot with, or leaving it to the discretion of the officer on the squad. To generalize what I'm seeing, departments are running hot to the scene, but if they assess the patient as BLS, they're driving with traffic to the hospital. They are making these changes based on the research similar to the links I posted above - that running hot puts lives at risks, many times only to shave a few minutes off of transport time for a patient that doesn't require an emergent transport.

I think that most companies have adopted some form of emergency vehicle operators course that they employ. I would argue that there are a great number of us who are certified emergency vehcile operators, and have good insticts and reflexes.

I agree with you. But there are also some real yahoo's running around out there. I've ridden with some. I'm sure you have, too.

[HellsBells]

I think the crux of the argument here is that we assume there are more ems accidents in the USA then in Australia per capita. But is there? Has anyone come up with any hard data, or are we just going off a perception based on media exposure? I looked to find stats involving ems accidents in both countries, but didn't come up with much.

However, if we simply look at the population densitys of the two countries; 21 million in Australia, and 300 million in USA, of course there are going to be more reported accidents in the USA. There are more people, more traffic, and a lot more urban areas in the US.

High density, low income areas, coupled with lack of universal health care may play a part; as sevenball suggests. But, I think thats more of a specious argument. I'm willing to bet that having ten times the population plays the most critical role in this discussion

[Richard B the EMT]

As most here are aware, I'm in the FDNY EMS, in a city of 8,000,000 residents, with another 2,000,000 transients per each 24 hour period. Our 9-1-1 system logs one point three million responses for EMS per year.

In a recent class lecture, the instructor, from the department's Safety Battalion, reminded us that, just in the FDNY EMS, we have at least one ambulance involved in some kind of Motor Vehicle Accident per day.

We have to slow down on the roads, people. Better folks than me have advised all of us that you can not help anyone, if you don't get to the scene. It is, after all, and hard hearted as it sounds, the PATIENT'S emergency, not yours.

I have noted that an ambulance accident takes your ambulance out of service, takes the ambulance responding to help you out of service, and the ambulance that will be needed to respond to your original call, not to mention the units that, unbidden, despite the dispatchers telling them not to, are going to roll in on you. That is a minimum of 3 ambulances.

A different instructor also indicated the emotional toll on other ambulance crews, monitoring the accident on the radio, and feeling helpless that they are too far away to help, as well as worrying about their colleagues, known to them or not. This distracts the other crews from THEIR driving, widening the possibility of other ambulances getting into incidents.

No matter how good you are in driving the ambulance, when not doing patient care in the back, you could make an error, or another driver makes the error, and folks are going to get hurt, or worse, DEAD.

Remember, to the other guy, YOU are the "other guy."

Out of respect, I'll still go, but I hate funerals. I suspect most of us do, too.

[Just Plain Ruff]

I don't understand where you got the idea that I think all bad wrecks are caused by big rigs. I don't think I ever made that statement. I said some of the worst wrecks I have been to have been big rig accidents.

I worked in EMS for 15 years, logged over 50K miles per year and never once responded to a bad accident involving an ambulance. maybe I wasn't in the right place at the right time but I've responded to plenty of accidents involving big rigs that were very bad.

Let me ask you a question, you criticize me for not allowing for grey areas, when it comes to our safety in EMS, our driving and our behaviour in EMS, is there a grey area? According to your statement referring to me that there must be a grey area in there somewhere.

I don't see any grey areas in the way we drive in EMS, the way we respond to our safety. There are no grey areas when it comes to my safety.

If you feel that there are grey areas relating to my safety and yours, then I ask you why do you allow it? I for sure never allowed grey areas when I worked when it came to my safety and the publics. Do you?

[Timmy]

I’ve gotta dash to work but I look forward to reading your replies when I return

[Timmy]

I understand that America has a greater number of residences hence the greater number of EMS workers and so on.

I would like to make some comparisons.

The first being driver training. Over here driver training plays quiet a big part in paramedic education. You’re introduced to driver training in your uni course and once employed it forms a great part of the induction training. It covers all parts of responding under emergency conditions in all sorts of road and environmental conditions.

The ambulances are fitted with airbags, crumple zone impact thingos, vehicle satiability features and so on. They’ve recently been updating the fleet and they’ve changed the whole cabin design and made the ambulances all hi viz.

Most services are pretty strict on how paramedics respond to emergencies. I’ve noticed that most of you have brought up EMS accidents when entering an intersection. Do you have rules that restrict the driver to slow right down (basically stopping), having and good look, making sure the passenger is happy to proceed then proceeding or is it more just hold your breath and hope for the best? What about speed restrictions?

Another point that pops to mind and I’m wanting someone to clarify this for me. Does your 911 system have a triage/clinician system that categories the urgency of calls or is it bells and whistles to everything?

[sevenball]

I think that hells bells makes a great point that no one has entertained yet. The media. Are the instances of ambulance related crashes greater in America, or do we have story thirsty media outlets hell bent on getting better ratings? Nothing makes a better story than irony. Goes the same for firefighters getting busted with trace amounts of marijuana in their system (see boston fire dept. new articles) Media may help to raise awareness of these things in America.

[DirtJerZ]

Just because you dont here about it doesnt mean it doesn't happen.

[Just Plain Ruff]

I think that hells bells makes a great point that no one has entertained yet. The media. Are the instances of ambulance related crashes greater in America, or do we have story thirsty media outlets hell bent on getting better ratings? Nothing makes a better story than irony. Goes the same for firefighters getting busted with trace amounts of marijuana in their system (see boston fire dept. new articles) Media may help to raise awareness of these things in America.

You know I agree with you Seven. But what I think we need to go further on is to shine the light on this type of thing. You cannot begin to change either the mortality rate in EMS or the theft rate in EMS/FIRE/Law enforcement until you shine a light on the darkness so to speak.

If there was accountability for actions instead of slaps on the wrists then there would be increased professionalism. When a disgraced firefighter or paramedic or police officer can go to another state and work there without sanctions or restrictions simply because their backgrounds are not checked that is a major problem.

Case in point, the small town I used to work for employed a young studly police officer. He would trade getting out of tickets for blowjobs and the like. The girls that he traded this for were teenage girls. He was caught because another officer stopped a girl who said that Officer you know who would let her off with a BJ. He was found out and he immediately admitted the deeds and quit and left town.

A year down the road it is found out that he is working for another police agency 3 states away.

This officers deeds were corroborated by over 20 girls recounting over 50 incidents of this behaviour by this officer. No charges were ever filed but it went on his record.

There are other stories out there but that's one that sticks out in my mind.