Paramedics Attacked by Prisoner.

[Arctickat]

http://www.capecodon.../NEWS/206040312

BOURNE —A paramedic was treated for injuries after a patient became combative en route to an off-Cape hospital, fire officials said.

Saturday night, just after 6, firefighters from Bourne were called to the police station to take an individual to Jordan Hospital in Plymouth.

Where I'm from, when we pick someone up from the cells we are given a police officer to accompany us and another in a car behind. I'm concerned that their priority is the patient and not their crew.

Edited June 5, 2012 by Arctickat

[emtdennis]

"That happens occasionally," Carrara said of the incident. "The main priority is to keep the patient safe, pull the vehicle over and make sure the patient doesn't hurt themselves or the firefighters."

I have a problem with this quote from the article. It shouldn't happen at all, especially to the extent that one of the medical team couldn't go back to work.

[HellsBells]

Sounds like complete incompetence on the part of this so called Fire Dept.

[WolfmanHarris]

This is the problem with the mentality of "part of the job." What it should mean is to be aware that patients and circumstances are unpredictable and to be prepared for things going awry. It doesn't mean suck it up and it doesn't remove the obligation of a service to protect it's crews.

For us, if the patient is under arrest we not only have PD follow, they are required by their own policy to be in the back with us since the patient is their prisoner. (This may even be a legal requirement in Ontario for all I know.) Once at the hospital two Police officers must guard the prisoner at all times.

If the patient is a mental health case and Police are involved they may ride along or they may just follow. Often times the Mental Health Act (MHA) apprehensions are attempted suicides where they'd initially attempted to refuse but were informed they wouldn't be given that option and come along without incident and Police are accompanying to do their duty under the law which requires them to have custody of the patient until the physician confirms the hold and hospital security can take over. If the patient required restraint and is cuffed, PD comes in the back.

[ERDoc]

"That happens occasionally," Carrara said of the incident. "The main priority is to keep the patient safe, pull the vehicle over and make sure the patient doesn't hurt themselves or the firefighters."

I'm hoping what the Chief Firemonkey meant to say was:

"Things like this should not happen. The main priority is to keep the crew safe, pull the vehicle over and do what we can, without getting ourselves hurt, to help the patient."

It's not clear from the article, but I would assume this person was a prisoner. Why was an officer not in the ambulance with him?

[island emt]

Very poorly written article.

What I interpret it to mean:

The crew was doing an off cape transport to plymouth hospital from Bourne.

[ Very common as there are no large hospitals on the cape & Bourne is just over the canal from the mainland. ]

While enroute the Pt became violent and the crew pulled over and were assisted by the Plymouth Police Dept.

At that point I would assume the Pt was in custody for assaulting the Medic.

Hard to find fault With the Fire medics for this one.

Could happen to any of us.

[craig]

Hard to find fault With the Fire medics for this one.

the only fault I can see it that FIRE is joined with medics, hose jockeys really dont have a role in emergency prehospital care.....dont the tossers have enough to do dragging the canvas and squirting the liquid?.....

[Bieber]

I was just on scene the other day where we were asked to knock on the door of a suspect's house to try and get him to come out because he had supposedly cut his hand after breaking some other relation's window to try and get inside and wasn't answering to PD when they banged on his door (the cop thought he might answer for us). I turned around and saw PD had gone across the street inside the victim's house.

Guy could have come out with a gun or a knife or whatever and started going to town on us. Bad move on PD's part, worse move on ours. Shouldn't have done it, no excuse for why I did--won't do it again in the future.

The point is, violence against us is largely preventable. It's when we get too comfortable or let our guard down that we start asking for violence. We can blame everyone else in the world for why we ended up in a bad situation, but at the end of the day, the only person accountable for our own safety is us--and we're the ones who have to suffer the consequences of failing to ensure our safety, whatever the means.