How far to the ER?

[Happiness]

a_shane2_go makes a good point, but it's a good idea that during those long empty trips back to base the attendant, who is now just a passenger, get some shut eye. Then, swap with his partner so he can get some sleep too rather than waste time and living on a 20 minute cat nap.

I just want to point out this comment. Please read below, one of the things I will not do is sleep while the passanger and I will talk to the driver, I also expect the same if I am the driver. The idea of catching a nap is good in theroy but sucks in reality..........

http://www.bcas.ca/assets/News/PDFs/2011/miit-report-ext-2011-06-07.pdf

the findings and recomendations are on the last few pages. The one good policy that came out of this, is that now when I answer a call I am required to give dispatch my employee number so they know who is in the car, at the beginning of this dispatch didn't know who the crew was.

[Bieber]

Keeping entertained on a call isn't often an issue for me. I rotate between a busy urban station next to one of our hospitals and a slower one in one of the towns out in the county--and even my more rural post is only about a twenty minute drive to the nearest hospital.

Occasionally we'll get a long distance call where there's nothing to do and I'll just work on paperwork on the way. That or talk to the patient and chat it up with them.

[Arctickat]

Although the incident was tragic, there is nothing in the report whatsoever regarding sleeping as a passenger. You can make all the assumptions you want, but without video surveillance in the ambulances no one will ever know what happened in the case of 136K1N, I never suggested sleeping while unsecured either. Using this as a sole example is a poor argument when it even admits that the cause of the incident is unknown. I'd rather have my crew rested than bleary eyed and making poor judgments due to fatigue that could have been avoided. I also fail to see how identifying who is on the call would have helped either, unless your dispatch centre is tracking duty hours for every medic working. Is it?

Edited April 30, 2012 by Arctickat

[Happiness]

Although the incident was tragic, there is nothing in the report whatsoever regarding sleeping as a passenger. You can make all the assumptions you want, but without video surveillance in the ambulances no one will ever know what happened in the case of 136K1N, I never suggested sleeping while unsecured either. Using this as a sole example is a poor argument when it even admits that the cause of the incident is unknown. I'd rather have my crew rested than bleary eyed and making poor judgments due to fatigue that could have been avoided. I also fail to see how identifying who is on the call would have helped either, unless your dispatch centre is tracking duty hours for every medic working. Is it?

I don't feel its a poor example at all, this is exactly what can go wrong if the two medics in the car are not conversing in some way on long drives. When you drive at night you can so easily become hypnotized or fall asleep. When I was in the military and we did night manuvers we always had a second person up front for this purpose, to keep the driver awake. I also believe in learn from others mistakes and this is a fatal one I am making the choice to learn from. I have told my crew that if they are to tired to drive you pull over and that is the end of that, no exceptions.

The reason for the giving our numbers is because alot of us being part time we change our shifts, or we might take a few hrs of anothers shift. If you are looking for someone you should know who your looking for, and in this case they didn't know who they were looking for at the beginning.

Your right this is a tragic event and in reality the cause could have been an animal in the road, as there was a bear hanging around the accident site. But if I remember correctly there were no tire marks which would indicate braking (you can look on the pics) and if no there is no tire marks it is a good indicator that the driver was asleep or if it was an animal it jumped out at that crutial moment.

Im not going to say your wrong in this case as alot of people sleep in the back on long trips. It has been done forever and will continue, all I am saying is that in my Station because of this incident we do not sleep while the car is moving.

[Arctickat]

I understand, but to me it's a kneejerk reaction to an undetermined cause that could prove more fatal. Perhaps a lesson could be taken from the rail lines. Every 5 minutes a button in the cab must be pressed or a tone will go off in the event that the driver is incapable of concentrating. If the tone goes off too many times, it's time to swap drivers.

[Happiness]

good idea maybe you should send that to CN rail since the dead mans peddle dosnt work so well and you never know that may be what makes you your millions

[Arctickat]

Peddle would work fine if they'd remove the tool boxes from the cabs.

[Cougar]

Wow, 10 hours for a call! ...and I thought my part northern New Mexico was the tules. I'm impressed. We have had three hours to be able to meet a helicopter.

[krumel]

Worked for a small service in the alps for a while....Next hospital (very very basic one - The docs had to come in at night...and no surgeon during weekdays nights) was 30 Minutes, next trauma center was 2.5h hours in summer (going over a mountain pass up to 2500m...)....In winter you were screwed. Ass the passes are closed you can only get there by train..So pack the patient in the ambulance... drive the ambulance on a train...wait 45 Minutes..drive off the train... Makes 3.5h hours in total. BUT the train operates only during the day....

So at night you totally rely on HEMS (who very rarely are able to fly over the passes in winter-nights)...Or "store" the patient at the hospital...Or try to get the federal insurance commision to allow you to go to the next foreign trauma center -which is still 3h...

But: We had DVD Players mounted to the roof of the ambulance so the patient that are not critical can be watching DVD and (theoretically - I've never seen it working- TV)

[SandPitMedic]

Currently, my transport times are usually no more than 15 minutes. At my last assignment however, our transport times were equal to our response times (we were stationed at the clinic) and could range from 5 minutes to two hours.