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Maybe I'm missing something since I'm a newbie but isn't the priority to your initial patient you're carrying? We are supposed to be our patient's advocate which means not placing them in any further danger than they already were in. In addition if we put ourselves into imminent danger that we have no way of protecting ourselves from, don't we make the possibility of becoming patients ourselves? It's my understanding that when you are dispatched to a call and you have the patient enroute to the receiving facility, you are out of service until that patient is transferred to equal or higher care providers. The only circumstance that I know of that would alter that is during a catastrophic MCI. In my opinion, someone needs to talk to these ems personnel and explain to them what their priorities are. They have a very good working radio and could have called in the accident if it hadn't been already since NYPD was on scene. If I had an infant patient in my rig that had suffered seizures, the last thing I'm going to do is stop for another incident that I can't treat. By stopping and moving into a scene that they had no background on what was happening not only put themselves in terrible danger, but risked the lives of their patient and accompanying family. I will say that I do give the crew credit for having passion to help however misguided their efforts were.

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Maybe I'm missing something since I'm a newbie but isn't the priority to your initial patient you're carrying? We are supposed to be our patient's advocate which means not placing them in any further danger than they already were in. In addition if we put ourselves into imminent danger that we have no way of protecting ourselves from, don't we make the possibility of becoming patients ourselves? It's my understanding that when you are dispatched to a call and you have the patient enroute to the receiving facility, you are out of service until that patient is transferred to equal or higher care providers. The only circumstance that I know of that would alter that is during a catastrophic MCI. In my opinion, someone needs to talk to these ems personnel and explain to them what their priorities are. They have a very good working radio and could have called in the accident if it hadn't been already since NYPD was on scene. If I had an infant patient in my rig that had suffered seizures, the last thing I'm going to do is stop for another incident that I can't treat. By stopping and moving into a scene that they had no background on what was happening not only put themselves in terrible danger, but risked the lives of their patient and accompanying family. I will say that I do give the crew credit for having passion to help however misguided their efforts were.

NY, NYC, and FDNY's policy, sop, and protocols state they were supposed to stop.

I know your new so I wont get on ya for not reading the thread before posting.

Bottom line debate the policy not the crew's action.

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Bottom line debate the policy not the crew's action.

I dunno about that. Even if that is the case with their policy, I still think they are wide open for criticism. Whether or not they were right or wrong to stop is not the only debate here. There is also the little matter of them being wankers for playing along with this "hero" nonsense. After all, if all they were doing was blindly following policy, that makes them even less heroes than if they had broken policy to do it.

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I dunno about that. Even if that is the case with their policy, I still think they are wide open for criticism. Whether or not they were right or wrong to stop is not the only debate here. There is also the little matter of them being wankers for playing along with this "hero" nonsense. After all, if all they were doing was blindly following policy, that makes them even less heroes than if they had broken policy to do it.

I'm not claiming they are hero's. All I'm saying is the policy that stated what their "duty" was to do, got done. They did nothing out of the ordinary. The gun was shear happenstance. I don't see where they are being wankers, I don't see where they go along with it or speak about it at all. I did a few google searches looking for more information on this topic and came up empty.

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  • 6 months later...

I LOVE this thread! :lol:

Since this was recently brought up again, and since the debate is still raging at JEMS.com, I wanted to revisit it. Hopefully, Asys will weigh in this time.

I'm not claiming they are hero's. All I'm saying is the policy that stated what their "duty" was to do, got done.

Wrong. They violated policy.

The official FDNY policy states that you stop only if these two criteria exist:

  • 1. The crew is flagged down. They were not.

2. The patient is stable. He was not.

  • So, regardless of the validity of FDNY policy, they violated it. Consequently, they can't use the old Nazi "just following orders" excuse.
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Well I'll go ahead and wade into this mess. I have "on-sited" calls, i.e. witnessed an accident or been flagged down while enroute to a call, in most instances we stop. Our dispatchers do not tell the person calling 911 that an ambulance is on the way, they tell them they will send as soon as they can. This, from what our management states (and the city lawyers as well) is NOT a contract with a patient, and diverting the ambulance to another emergency is not considered abandoning the first. We don't dispatch on a first come first served basis, its triaged, just like the people sitting in the ER waiting room, just because you were there first doesn't make you first. Also ambulances are diverted by dispatch for a higher priority call, for example if I were responding to an altered mental status diabetic, and a cardiac arrest came in, chance are if Iwere closer to the arrest, I'd be re-directed to that call. Maybe we can get 9 more pages on this? :lol:

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Well I'll go ahead and wade into this mess. I have "on-sited" calls, i.e. witnessed an accident or been flagged down while enroute to a call, in most instances we stop. Our dispatchers do not tell the person calling 911 that an ambulance is on the way, they tell them they will send as soon as they can. This, from what our management states (and the city lawyers as well) is NOT a contract with a patient, and diverting the ambulance to another emergency is not considered abandoning the first. We don't dispatch on a first come first served basis, its triaged, just like the people sitting in the ER waiting room, just because you were there first doesn't make you first. Also ambulances are diverted by dispatch for a higher priority call, for example if I were responding to an altered mental status diabetic, and a cardiac arrest came in, chance are if Iwere closer to the arrest, I'd be re-directed to that call. Maybe we can get 9 more pages on this? :lol:

Yeah... but how often have you done that with a patient in the back ? That's the point here.. they had a patient in the back, a child no less, that they subjected to the uncertainties present at any scene. I like the discussion this has generated, but I can't imagine a mentality, a work place or a system that says what the medics in the original posting did was in anyway acceptable, let alone "heroic".

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I'm not sure if I've posted on this topic before, but...There had been a couple of times while making Interstate transfers that I did stop while having a patient in the back. Once I was taking a cardiac patient to Springfield, IL with only a nurse in back. There was a semi on fire. The driver was waving me down. I pulled over and the guys arm was still smoking. I checked him real quick and used an extinguisher from my rig and put the fire out. I treated and wrapped the driver's arm which had second and third degree burns. First off I did contact the nearest EMS service. It took them about 15 minutes to get there. But in the mean time another truck driver stopped, got into the semi that had been burning, started it back up and it caught fire again. (Real smart, p!ssed me and the other driver off big time). The patient I had in the back was watching out the back window and said he got a kick out of watching. In matter of fact he wrote me a letter of commendation. He was in no distress at the time, but if he were I wouldn't have stopped. At least I don't think so. :-k

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I am not sure if this is local, provincial, or canada wide, but we are not allowed to stop with a patient in the unit transfer or unstable. If we have a patient we are not "for hire". However if we do not have a pt. we are obligated to stop.

Morals say one thing law says another.

DOOD:

This is not as clear cut as you would believe, in Kanukistan that is:

1- You do not have a legal duty to stop .... when your off duty, I believe one has a moral obligation OFF DUTY, this is part in parcel of our whole Canadian Culture !

2- If you did not stop while on duty (the only exception is a truely life or limb patient in the back) and there was a death on scene you could be charged with criminal negligence .. period.

3- "tort law" or civil law is based on the "reasonable man" sooo you in a court if you were found to be acting on false misunderstandings of the law .... ignorance of the law is not a reasonable excuse in a court.

I soo agree with DOOGER in this thread, I am proud that he is a member of EMS, he has tried not tried prematurely judge a brother via a news cast and I know if I was flipped over with my kids trapped .... HE would be the man to do the right thing

cheers

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Our policy is to stop and assess the second patient only if the patient we are treating is stable. One medic will attend to each patient. If the patient we are transporting is unstable, we do not stop, just call for a second unit.

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