Chief1C

I doubt he would have made it to the police car. I'd have shut that $#!t down, meaning the other lanes of traffic, till said person was somehow secured. I was waiting for either the patient to get nailed by an oncoming vehicle, or a rescuer to get pushed into said lane.

Talk it out. Sit down, visualize it in your mind, b/c that stuff doesn't go away. Describe it in great detail if you have to, just to get it out.. Like that movie line, an emotional enema. Just with those two. Nobody else has to hear it. Speak to a grief or critical incident stress councilor. If you have faith in god, which I do not, let me just put that out there. Consider a member of the local clergy, that's a big thing in rural areas. Don't hold it in, EMS loses good people because they don't have anyone there to stand by their side, or if need be give a shoulder to cry on. Everyone had a breaking point, and sometimes you don't even know what your own is, till you take a step back and ask yourself how you dealt with that. I think its okay, and healthy to either cry it out, or ask someone to talk. We need to stand together, and whether I do it for someone under my command, or someone five hundred miles away, its the right thing to do. Now I couldn't find much for West Virginia.. The state's EMS page kinda sucks. Just sayin' But I'll PM you with an area contact from the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation. In the future, if you need to get someone there - quickly - to speak to someone; you can call this number: 410-313-2473. That applies to any area of the US, and they'll get someone to you. In fact, there is probably a team in West Virginia, but the EMS website just doesn't have any of that info. Hope that helps.

Holy Shit! $225,000.00 for an ambulance? We spec'd out a top of the line, custom job, full of modern, safe, bells and whistles and all that, and it was about $80,000.00 less. I thought they were one of these places using like 20, 30 year old ambos. Hell, I looked it up, and it only shows the years of two of them. But it's '05 and '09. No sympathy. I know places that have ambulances from the 80's still. ...for $225,000.00.. They could have replaced two of them. That right there is poor planning. Rant on. We have no idea what will become of EMS billing in the next few years. If this plan to base Medicare payments on patient outcome goes through, we could all be screwed. We can't fix their life of bad living in the back of a goddamn ambulance. Rant off.

Seriously...? I understand privacy, and HIPAA, and all that.. and I'm not disputing the persons right to protect their info. What I'm disputing is the article. It contains absolutely no info, at all, why even bother?

There may be some helpful information in this topic: http://www.emtcity.com/topic/18834-starting-an-ambulance-service/page__hl__%2Bstarting+%2Bservice When buying a used ambulance.. with a minimal budget.. I would very strongly suggest, that you choose one that belonged to, like, a rural volunteer service, that has a lot of F.O.G.'s that sincerely value and respect the money spent to keep it in operation. You'd almost be getting a good deal. If you buy something surplus from a major ambulance service supplier with 300,000 miles on it, and only pay $5000 for it.. You may as well shoot yourself in the foot. Just in my experience, the older something is, with low miles, the better deal you get, and they always seem to be well cared for.. We get a new one every 10 years, whether we need one or not. After ten, it won't have any trade-in value, even if it has less than 70,000 miles. But they're always in amazing condition.

Yeah, that Fifty Shades of Grey will get ya every time. Hope you don;t like sleeping at night if your female companion gets hold of the books.

I think I'll just pop myself off before the need to fight off Zombies arrives. Seems like too much trouble. But if they could talk, I would go dig up a few bodies with a backhoe and ask some fricken questions. Though, at least one already lost the brain. I suppose the way to prevent zombie-ism, would be to remove the brain before burying the dead. Or just drive a stake through their skull before closing the casket. Yanno, like embalming and piercing the heart used to prevent people from being buried alive.

I fixed that for you.

The first time I seen someone bleeding everywhere, before I was trained in any facet of patient care, I went right to it and did what I could. I knew that I was cut out for it at that moment. On the otherhand, if I see blood dripping from my own body, catch my head, b/c I'm prolly gonna faint. Almost a 100% guarantee. There will always be moments, that even the strongest provider cannot handle. You have to learn how to get past those in a healthy and proactive manner. Once you get that down, you're good to go. I don't know how else to explain it.

http://www.boston.co...ace_dies_at_61/ *edit, spelling in header

I'd have to agree BEorP.. If you're dispatched for a small plane crash, you know you'll need either a few ambos, or the coroner.. if it's a jumbo jet.. you know you'll have a lot of injured or dead. If you're dispatched for a shooting at a theater, you don't expect to find up to 70 people with GSW's. That isn't something that you typically see in the US. You can hear the distress in the voices of the providers, and it's almost safe to say few of them have probably ever seen something like this.. I believe they handled it very well, for interfacing agencies.

There's another one that would throw you for a loop, eh? Pick up vs tree, have them often.. But never arrive to find 23 people involved. Must have been an intertesting sight. Bad, maybe horrific, but interesting in a cross that off your bucket list all the same. Just sayin'

Maybe... There in..whereever you're from. I live in Pennsylvania, and I can't think of a single EMT or Paramedic that I personally know, that is employed by just (1) service. Many of them work for two, or three...or five services. All of which are combinations of 911 and IFT. A big thing anymore is volunteer services going paid during the day hours. Even at 60hrs a week, most of them still have to work an 8hr night shift somewhere. If you have your financial seed planted, and have a specialty, you can move. But I don't know many people that work as EMT's, who move, to be EMT's somewhere else.

Clean that up a bit? Your warped view from a questionable past. Judge the book by its cover, is it okay to turn the tables? Are you a muppet, or a trainee?

The problem is, it is almost 100% impossible to perfectly fit any item, to any patient. Nothing is an absolute fit. Hell, different manufacturers "no neck" or "neckless" aren't even the same size. Back in the day, they had vacuum splint collars. I bet that could be used well and good, but I bet you could also accidentally kill your patient with one. The only thing I could recommend, is having a few soft collars, eg Philly Collars, the foam ones. And a few of the really soft ones, the white soft foam filled ones. The solution won't be simple, because of neck width, so the collar will have to be longer. And many spine boards have a 500lb cut off, I've seen some bent to their limit. So I'd suggest building up with a board on like a Reeves.

I would have prolly just called the coroner. Just sayin'

Bullshit. Take him outside the courthouse and shoot him in the back of the head. Insanity, my ass.

I never consider whether someone can pay, or cannot pay when they call. Because as the billing agent, I always have the option to write someone off. I would rather them get to A hospital, any hospital; than die from circumstances beyond immediate control. Most health systems allow one to set up a payment plan. If I bill someone $1200, and they say they'll either not pay; or they can pay $5 a week till it's paid off - I'll take the $5 a week. I'm sure many hospitals would too. I get my forms signed after we get to the ER, I don't ask them about insurance before we treat them; and if they refuse, there is no bill. If they refuse with ALS, we end up footing a $75 bill. However, it's so rare for ALS to meet us on scene - maybe once every three or four years, that we do not pass that off to the patient. (that is unless it's like a wreck that takes a half hour to cut someone out, then ALS might meet us on scene). That storm was nasty when it passed through here, the NOAA Alarm literally JUST went off, when a strike hit directly behind the station. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up, then heard the boom. But it only lasted a few minutes, the rain was worse, flooded the streets. South and to the west they had really bad damage, fires, etc. from it.

Wow.. Sad, yet ironic. Most tall stones are usually easy to upset by pushing on them between 2 and 4 feet from the ground, by means of rocking. I witnessed a teenager push one over w/ his foot, and proceeded to sit with him, as he waited for someone from the cemetery...and his parents to arrive. That way they could arrange to pay for the damage and have it uprighted. Too many unlikely dangers to be causually walking in an old cemetery.. sink holes (ankle breakers), etc.

The sale of it is illegal, due directly to deaths, you can bring it back, own it, consume it, etc. You just can't get it, w/o trying hard. I'd have to go to Maryland to purchase it.

Unfortunately, well, no..fortunately.. in many states, "Moonshine", or 100pf alcohol is illegal; and probably most of them require a permit for anything larger than sparklers. In larger areas, most people aren't buddy-buddy with a local elected official enough, to get them to sign a pyrotechnics permit. Here, anyone elected to a municipal board; or a fire chief can sign them. Except the signer bears responsibility if someone gets sued. So... you have to kiss ass big time to get one signed, or know the right person. After last night.. a lot of people know the right person. No calls though. Back in the day, it was big for kids to get hay bails, dump them along the road and set them ablaze. It's "haying" season, so the possibility for bails to spontaneously combust is high. Bacteria in wet, tightly bound or wrapped hay makes, heat, heat leads to combustion. But not usually on the outside of the bail, and it's harder to fight a hay fire, than it is a house fire, b/c that stuff will smoulder for a week or two, stinks to high hell too. Thick, yellow-green smoke, burned hay has a sickening, sweet odor. Anyhoo.. There are no fireworks displays around here, at least not on Independence Day. I'd prolly go out and have a few drinks, and just relax in general. Maybe go out, and not drink, depends on staffing. However, historical tidbit, Independence from Britian was actually declared on July 2nd; the written document, declaring our rights, etc; was adopted on the 4th. John Adams intended for the 2nd to be a day to be remembered...but nobody paid attention in American History, now did they? I'm not particularly fond of anyone feeling that they have the right to use massive fireworks in their front lawn. We've had A LOT of fires over the years, b/c they just aren't equipped to set them off properly. You at least need a method of fire protection, larger than a garden hose... b/c that will only reach so far from the source. Think: Friction Loss... if you even have enough hose. Roofs, barns, cars, fields, trees, brush fires. It's been a HOT, and kinda dry summer. It may rain hard now and then, but if the sun comes right back out, that isn't going to help. The grass looks dormant, so the probability for fire spread is there. Forest fires are unlikely, but brush, grass, scrubbrush, piles of stuff, old wood, etc.. I've never been fond of amateur fireworks displays. Even when I was a kid, we did some on the 4th, had a permit, and a bucket of water to put the spend casings in. Yeah... Set a hemlock tree on fire accidentally, holy shit. Dunno if you've ever seen dead hemlocks burn, but, a garden hose ain't gonna cut it. Luckily everyone in the family had a key to the fire hall.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/04/arts/television/andy-griffith-actor-dies-at-86.html?pagewanted=all What truly rural person can't relate to Mayberry, in some way or another? Great actor, not a bad singer, either.

Back in the day that was Shining Time Station... Used to love that.

Pull that bad boy out, if it sprays blood or something, put it back in. Otherwise, take off the victim's sock, or that of a bystander - in case the victim isn't wearing any... Because srsly, dude, what is with EVERYONE wearing sandals? Everyone, everywhere. Do they even make socks anymore? I even started to wear them, but it makes my pinky toes sore. Anyhoo.. You use someone elses, because you don't know what kind of disease this injured person has, and after they're done using that sock for bleeding control. You of course have the right to ask for it back, because what good is one sock, without the other? Right? So just take a shoe string or two and wrap that sock in place, call 9-1-1, and leave. Unless it's your shoestring or sock. Then I'd wait till the ambulance arrived, dressed and bandaged the wound, and ask for my shoe string back. Yes, I'm being painfully sarcastic.

Usually bring the ambulance.