Rules against calling 911 when it isn't an emergency?

[cotjockey]

http://www.doubleqcountry.com/artman/publi...icle_8981.shtml

I understand the point, but how are they going to enforce this? How are they going to determine what is an emergency and what is not? Are they only going to punish repeat offenders or will the do it the first time? Are they going to take a person's mental capabilities into account?

I know where they are coming from...I would bet that more than half of what we respond to is non-emergent, at least according to us. I would also bet that a lot of the non-emergent calls seemed emergent to the person who called.

[brentoli]

The bigger situation is the burning out of the volly's.

Get rid of them and then the problem is solved.

[Chrisclark]

These people who wrote this article must not have know any of the volunteers I work with...

to them everything is an emergency

but yes, I think there should be some kind of penalty, or mandatory class or something if you call 911 for very obvious BULLS**T (such as abdominal pain to the dispatcher then lint in the bellybutton onscene or bleeding from the mouth wile on the phone and then having chapped lips onscene)

it is very frustrating to get woke up in the middle offer the night for that kind of stuff

[vs-eh?]

NEWSFLASH!

The vast majority of EMS calls ARE non-emergent either by dispatch, call details, or actual patient complaint and treatment. Only a small percentage of 911 calls (certainly less than 20% in my opinion, likely closer to 10) absolutely see benefit from EMS transport and treatment beyond what they themselves or family could have done. Truly acute emergencies are not the bread and butter of 911 EMS folks.

Poor small town Nebraska are "bothered" by the fact that only 207 out of their 370 calls actually were deemed worthy of their great EMS prowess and attention? BOO FUCKING WHOO...

You boys are getting "burned out" by this astounding volume of calls? Try doing hundreds and hundreds of 911 calls a year that I have to attend to that are "non emergent" 911 calls...

Obviously these yahoo's had zero idea of "real EMS" and medicine in general. What a joke...

Impossible to enforce any kind of "restriction" for calling 911. Way to many what if's... But with these glory hounds it might just be better to call throw Jim-Bob in the truck and skedaddle on to the hospital yourself...

[Chrisclark]

You are right...

I might only get one call every shift or two that actually needs an ambulance

I might only get one call a month that is a true emergency

and I work in a busy service,

but you know good and well that there are those few calls that are just simply blatant 911 abuse, those need to have some penalty because they tie up a rig that may need to be somewhere else

[cotjockey]

I just don't see how they can enforce any kind of rule against calling 911 when it isn't an emergency. For things that are very obviously not an emergency, maybe, but I've seen people call for things that were really stupid but, they were convinced that they were about to die. How can someone prove that they didn't know it wasn't an emergency?

I wonder how long it will take for them to get sued because someone is so afraid of being in trouble for calling for something that isn't an emergency that they end up dying.

[Chrisclark]

I don' think they sould not send somebody...

I just think after the fact they need to be required to take a class to teach them about EMS and what 911 is for and not for

[JakeEMTP]

Oh dear Oh dear. Poor old Podunk Volly EMS is getting burned out by their 307 calls. Perhaps as brentoli stated........................, you all know the rest.

911 abuse happens. Hell, we have transported patients from the Doctors office whom were going to be admitted to the hospital and could have easily gone by one of the many non-emergent services in place here. ( FYI, we have spoken to them about this, but I digress ).

We may think it is a BS call. The caller obviously thinks their particular situation is an emergency. So ( sigh ) we respond.

It is indeed a problem. Charging folks who call is wrong. It may in fact, stop them from calling when they are having a true emergency.

[ems61chic]

K, so I get why we all get p o'd when we are sent on a call to put a bandaid on grandma's arm or get a cat out of a tree. However, we have to keep in mind that although it may not be an emergency at all to us, it is to those calling 911. I get aggrevated especially with the frequent flyer's BUT it's just part of the job we have to deal with!

[Chief1C]

What is with these people with their fractures? Used to be, you broke your arm, and they put you in the car and drove you either to the hospital or a doctor..

If there's not bone showing, blood spraying, or limbs about to fall off, I generally don't want to see them. There are certain criteria that I would make exceptions for, but we don't have that kind of time.

Usually if it's a Podunk ambulance, burned out by a few hundred calls.. It's because the same three people ran every single call. I did that for a while, going on calls every day, sometimes every day of the week with no breaks for a month.

I have a feeling that municipal EMS will be gone by Jan. 08. Not sure if that's good or bad. Every system has its flaws, but the local paid system isn't exactly what you'd call stable.