Safety Discussion

[island emt]

Many years ago [ 1978 ] , I had the closest call of receiving my angel wings in my career.

We were called for an assault with stabbing to a third floor walkup in the hood, PD on scene.

We arrived and toted all our gear up to the railroad apt and on reaching the proper floor found one cop at the back door and two others in the apt with the "victim".

While treating the pt's knife injuries we heard a door open and low & behold the perpetrator pops out of the closet at the end of the hallway with a mac 10 in his hand.

As we all dove for the exit door the two cops mowed my partner & I down trying to get clear.

Lucky for us Hector had lousy aim and sprayed the ceiling over our heads.

That was a night for a couple shots and a change of our uniform pants. :-}

ever since that august night all those many years ago, I never put much faith in the cops clearing the scene until they have checked every square inch of the residence.

We all run into the agitated and potentially violent patient from time to time, but that doesn't mean we need to be punching bags or worse for them.

Trust your spidey sense and if your radar goes off get out.

[DwayneEMTP]

One of the most hair raising calls I've ever heard of came from a tiny little lady medic I knew.

Truck in the ditch, driver covered in blood...load and go and while she's cutting off his clothes looking for his wounds he says, "That's ok, the bloods not mine...I'm fine." She asks, "Um...who's blood is it?" He says, "The guy I took the truck from..."

Anyway..the story is long and complicated after that...but leave it to say that she really wished she would have paid more attention to the scene and his behavior instead of just his condition before loading him into the ambulance...

Great thread!

Dwayne

[Lone Star]

I appreciate your concern, but how many millions of EMS calls were run this week, and we had 5 problem calls....................................................... just saying.

Even if this was only for a 1 week period, where do you draw the line between 'accetpable collateral damage' and 'one too many'?

Those 5 calls may be only the ones highlighted, but how many never made the news, or weren't reported by the local police departments?

The point is that even if it were only ONE call that went awry, there may have been some warning sign, or something that could have been done to prevent the headline in the first place.

Scene safety is stressed in class, simply because it's a VERY important factor out on the streets!