Long Transport Times?

[grumpymedic4]

transport times here are anywhere from 10 min. to an hour depending on which hosp. you are going to and what mode of transport.

[Alcomedicism]

You its know really bad when there is an MVA on the county line and BOTH services are called out and it ends up being in the other county anway and transport time becomes 45mins ETA to like 2hrs. ETA after we figure just which side of the county line its on.

-Dixie

[mediccjh]

When I work my rural service, 15-60 minutes.

[emtmoira]

Depending on what city/town we respond to in our area and if we transport lights and sirens or not it can range from 2 minutes to 40 minutes. We get really good at PFA and because we're so rural you've gotta know at least something about the hunting seasons and whatnot to talk to the patients!

[Clarkster]

Gidday,

We are situated in Ayers Rock (Yulara) which is 450 km from the nearest Major Hospital, which is really only an 18 Medical Bed, 4 Resus Bay Emergency Department.

The Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) have a small but very well equip Clinic / Emergency Dept with 2 Resus Beds and 2 medical beds.

We continually get road trauma with tourists driving on nice roads with open speed limits, but for some reason they keep rolling their cars and campers.

It is nothing for us to travel 2 hours out to a job at high speed, treat the patients, organize Aero Med or load to go back 2 hours to Ayers Rock Medical to stabilize and prepare for Aero Med from there.

On New Years Day, I traveled out 2 hours to a roll over with 4 German tourists driving on Australian roads for the first time. They saw a Goanna (large lizard) on the road, and swerved to miss it. They rolled 3 times and all of them got out without one injury. When I was taking a history, they were very emotional. I asked them what was wrong, they told me this is the second time in a week that they should have been dead. They went on to tell me that at 0730hrs on Boxing Day (Dec 26th) they got on a small ferry from Phi Phi Island in Thailand and were taken to the mainland to catch a flight to Australia. At 0830hrs, a huge wave devastated the island and killed 250. :shock: I told them to go buy a Lotto ticket.

Sorry, a little off the story.

[MedFire]

Well out here in the Hilltown we cover 3 times the size of Boston. Thank goodness not as many people tho. Depending on what town your going to you can be looking at anywhere from 15min ride to a 90min ride. I never knew how out of shape i was until i had to do CPR for 45mins to the closest hoispital (and she was a big woman) but anyway im just glad to have one thing pretty close and thats life flight or medflight granted its 10-15 out most of the time but hey sometimes they beat the ambulance (if dispatched by FD onscene right away). Im so used to long rides that when i went and did my ride time in the city i couldnt believe how many times u can be at the hospital in 1 hour. lol

[1EMT-P]

Our transport times average anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour. Our Inter-hospital transports average anywhere from 1.5 hours to 2 hours.

[EMSCynic]

Try working in a system where the transports are only 10-15 minutes, but the crew drags ass for an hour at the hospital, tying up coverage resources.

[bandaidpatrol]

That 30-90 minutes is not because we go 20 miles an hour, it takes that long at 60 or 65mph. Maybe instead of blaming EMS, they should blame the government for lack of progress in rural health facilities. We had a medical center once upon a time, took in ambulances, had a trauma room; teaching facility - always had two docs and ten students working at other specialties like orthopedics and geriatrics. It was funded by the Commonwealth of PA. Was a life saver, fifteen minutes from anywhere in the county. That place saved more lives that they will ever know, saved us from burning out a lot of people too. Well, the government says it was a waste of money. We are one of the most popular tourist destinations in the state, we have a resort town, a casino river boat on a lake, huge hotels and rich people out the Kazoo... Former President Clinton stays here for a month each summer. We put a lot of tax dollars into the state, but nothing gets sent back here. We weren't important enough and didn't have enough "all year" residents to have that life saving facility! They took it away, lots of people lose their lives because you can only go so fast to keep it safe. Maybe instead of making it to hospitals more quickly, they should be a little bit closer to us?

Even if it were just a place to get people stabilized. Rural Ambulance services have been trying to make the survivability rate better since the 1920's. But for our system to work, they have to make hospitals better, we need more. Folks in Coon pecker point should have the same shot at surviving illness and injury as someone in New York City. A lot of things work against us! Many urban people have to see all the aspects of rural ems. It's not because we're farther away it's because rural areas -wilderness or suburban - lack much needed medical facilities. We're doing all we can; while we are rushing to the ER at unsafe speeds they think we get there quick enough and see "no reason to be any more close".

[1EMT-P]

In my opinion two of the biggest problems facing Rural EMS is 1. The lack of medical facilities. 2. The lack of money for education, equipment & training in the rural areas.