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I dunno if News Robot posted this or not.. http://statter911.com/2012/08/16/must-see-video-nypd-cop-shoots-dog-crowd-outraged-but-no-one-seems-to-care-about-the-man-having-a-seizure-in-the-street/ So this is probably a homeless man, has a pitbull. The man is having a seizure, and the dog is protecting him. Cops shoot the dog, and the crowd goes nuts. I watched the long version, in nine minutes of footage, not one single person comments about the condition of the seizure patient, and not one single person tries to help. Including the police. There's one for your duty to act. I know they get a certain degree of emergency first aid training in their academy. Pennsylvania, equally among all Law Enforcement, gets ARC Emergency Responder. Not shocked at all, just pathetic. Damn cop car drivers.

If you have opportunity to attend this event, I strongly encourage it. It is a great experience, full of knowledge and fun. As I did last year, I will repeat again this year. There will be a scholarship/grant/award to send someone to this event...details coming soon.

I'm really going to try and make it this year. I went once and met Anthony, Rob, BEorP and of course you 'zilla. Great time with good people and some awesome con-ed. I'll book the time off next shift!

No, i need not the reputation of a fire fighter or a cop. I don't want or need to be a "hero". I'm proud of what I'm doing good, but I'm aware it requires constant education to stay on top. Yes, I want to be generally respected for what I've learned, know & do now, just as any other profession. No public praises needed, just a better pay. BTW, that may be the point: it's a lot of public relation. Fire dept's seem to put a lot of effort in their reputation, especially if volunteer. That's not bad per se. But they sure have excellent possibilities: action, big technical things, large trucks... Compared to this, our possibilities in EMS are very limited. Action = blood & guts? Who wants to see this? And we know that's not the thing. But we aren't allowed to talk about the most of our incidents directly due to confidentality laws, where fire dept. may publish every small lawn fire or broken water pipe. If we do, noone understands the beauty of a strange ECG rhythm anyway. And what does attract kids in an ambulance? You simply can't compare a 20ml syringe to a real fire hose... But that doesn't cause me to fall on the dark side, starting to whine about lack of public awareness. Rather than that I would like to provide a professional appearance, high level of care and a confident team in even the worst situations. On the long term I think this is what builds up a good public relation. And the EMS provider that spoils this by doing something silly just is a large back step - if career or volunteer. So I spend a lot of my time in training & teaching to get the standards high - if for my career or volunteer group. On the other side, let's look at the real reputation of a fire fighter or a cop: it's very ambivalent. Some may see them as heroes, but a lot see them as prolly beer or doughnut consumers in uniform, lighting fires or beating innocents just for their own enjoyment, beeing in the way rescuing cats out of trees or causing traffic delays instead of solving major crimes. I can't see this ambivalence in EMS public awareness. And I'm glad for this! We have a job to do and we simply do it. That's way cooler than posing in dirty gear making a story out of some others suffering. No, really no hero image needed. Just some random thoughts...

Going off topic a bit but you can rig a bag mask, PEEP valve and nasal cannula to provide CPAP. Simply attach the PEEP valve to the bag valve mask and attach to at least 15 LPM of Oxygen. Then, place nasal cannula on the patient running at 15 LPM. This will provide both flow and a constant pressure (CPAP). If anything, you can use it as a pre-oxygenation method prior to intubation. This is how it's done: http://emcrit.org/misc/bvm-preoxygenation-and-reoxygenation/