EMSGeek

Nope, a class C felony. I believe this is a relatively recent law though so in the past it might have been a lesser crime. From what I've gotten from LEOs typically when someone is in a position to be charged with "Assault on a peace officer, police officer, fireman or emergency medical services professional" they are also violating other laws which will land them similar or more severe sentences. I've included the text of the law below: NYS Penal Code 120.08 Assault on a peace officer, police officer, fireman or emergency medical services professional. A person is guilty of assault on a peace officer, police officer, fireman or emergency medical services professional when, with intent to prevent a peace officer, police officer, a fireman, including a fireman acting as a paramedic or emergency medical technician administering first aid in the course of performance of duty as such fireman, or an emergency medical service paramedic or emergency medical service technician, from performing a lawful duty, he causes serious physical injury to such peace officer, police officer, fireman, paramedic or technician. Assault on a peace officer, police officer, fireman or emergency medical services professional is a class C felony.

New York State recently passed a law which makes it a Class C Felony to assault an "EMS Professional" while that person is in the act of rendering aid. I know some other states have similar laws but I don't believe there is anything on the federal level which applies.

Got a couple things to add in. First one: Takes place during a training scenario at my corps base. We had an EMT student running a scenario with two helpers who knew things like how to take vitals and hold c-spine. EMT: "BSI Scene Safety" Evaluator: "Scene is safe" EMT: "I'm going to immediately have my helper grab c-spine." Helper (looking puzzled): "That's in the rig, right? Back compartment?" Room: Silence. Room: Laughter. No, he has not lived that one down yet. Second one: I was doing ride time for my EMT class and the rig I was with was picking up a PT for an inner facility transport to a Cath lab. While the paramedics were getting their paper work in order I was directed to grab a set of vitals and run through some hx questioning. I approached the PT and identified myself and my purpose. Get the vitals done and the PT's wife comes into the room. PT is a 60 something M with an unstable MI. Wife: "Do you want anything?" PT: "Yes, but I don't think it would be appropriate in the middle of the ER." Wife (gasps): "Clearly that heart attack can't be too bad since your sense of humor is fine." PT: "My sense of humor isn't the only thing that is fine." (PT's eyes are focused a little below her head) Wife (gasps, again): "I can't take you anywhere. I will meet you at the Cath lab." PT and Wife exchange goodbyes and she leaves. PT: "Ya know what?" Me: "What?" PT: "I hate to see her leave but boy do I love to watch her go." Me: "Umm...ah...umm....(I didn't know what to say so I went back to my questioning) Are you on any ED medications?" PT: "Like Viagra?" Me: "Yeah." PT: "Nope, don't need 'em. You can ask my wife. She looses sleep over it, if you know what I am saying." Dirty old men are funny.

Part of BLS calling for ALS when not necessarily required may be due to the county/region/state. I work in Upstate New York primarily on a BLS transporting ambulance which services a college campus of about 8,500 staff and students. One of our big calls is ETOH abuse (big freaking surprise) but when I get on scene and I get a PT who has simply had too much to drink and needs to sleep it off, if that guy gets 1 single question wrong then he is AOx2 and therefore AMS. For AMS I have to call ALS or the county/region/state CQI committees will rip me a new one. I know that some of the medics are pretty pissed when I get them out of bed so they can talk to the PT for three minutes and then clear the PT for BLS transport. Some of our drunk patients really just need sleep. I will make sure they have a reasonably sober friend who will take care of them the rest of the night but if the PT is maintaining their airway, has no difficulty breathing, no trauma, stating they took no drugs and I have no reason to believe they are lying (other than the fact that they are talking), vitals are WNL, and they haven't been binge drinking then I'm more than happy signing these guys off. Sometimes we will get a PT who initially is AOx2 but after a little talking and maybe some fresh air is now AOx3, why should I bug the medics? Most of the providers I know up here who operate in more rural areas are very confident about their skills because they need to be. As it has been mentioned some areas have a 30+ minute transport/link up time so you are basically on your own and had better be able to handle the PT.

Powerful post. Let me preface my response by saying that I am just an EMT-B with no formal CISM/D training. I have friends who have returned from Iraq in the last year and I've seen changes in them. Some of them have experienced things which are negatively impacting their day to day lives and some have experienced things which they carry with them and feel the weight of but do not give in. It sounds like you are going through what the latter of my friends are experiencing. Until someone with more experience and more letters after their name convinces me otherwise I'm going to say that you and my friends are experiencing a form of post traumatic stress disorder. PTSD is exactly what CISM/D is supposed to mitigate. I definitely do not think you're crazy or weak. If you have a good CISD team available to you now try and talk with one of them. Explain that you had a call a while ago which you want to talk about and see if they would be open to sitting down with a beer and having a chat with you. Otherwise maybe a therapist could help...I really do not know how to solve problems like this. Hopefully some of the other people on this forum can give you information. Dust and several of the other members are deployed and have undoubtably seen people have all kinds of reactions to stress and could lend some good advice. At the end of the day you and your crew did everything you guys could do. I believe some of the more experienced members will agree with me in saying this is one of the most painful and dreaded calls that an EMS provider can have. Best of luck.

If a system was in place which permitted Basics to become certified in certain skills after lengthy training/education on that specific skill would people support that? I'm talking about 40-50 hours of classroom and field time per skill. The training should include a solid amount of A&P related to the topic, indepth contraindications (why something contraindicates that procedure), complications, etc. Looking at this debate from a strictly patient care side of things wouldn't it help a patient if they required a certain procedure and a well educated basic was able to preform that skill? Are we discussing just the two skills mentioned in the survey or any ALS skill at a basic level?

I think Dust's concern might be regarding the wanker factor. I recently went through what you are doing but on a BLS level with a Blackhawk STOMP II and basically decided to take a general list of BLS supplies compiled from several sources and just think through how I would be using things. The tools I have for the most life threatening or most oftenly accessed items are the quickest to get to. Put things in you bag how ever you think is good and then take it to the field...once in the field you can begin to streamline it.

You are looking for a gear list. I see two routes to figuring out what should be in the bag. First look at the what you will be treating rather than what you will be using to treat it, that is look at the kinds of conditions you will see and what you will need to treat them. That approach should help you determine what you will need. In narrowing down what "type" of medicine you will be doing, ie extended wilderness care, medical emergencies with the occasional trauma, impact injuries (ie working motorcross or other high speed events), industrial, etc you should see very clearly what you will need. Once you have that base line established look at issues like resupply, ie do you need to carry enough gear to treat several patients before you can restock. In NYS we have a regulation called Part 800, I believe it is a subset of some larger regulation, that tells us what we need to have on our rigs. See if your region/state has that. The second thing to do is to look for medical organizations specific to the sort of emergencies you will be dealing with. For wilderness medicine there is the Wilderness Medical Society. These organizations will have had solid discussions about what should be used and carried and often the leading experts in that field are involved. As I type the thought of looking at premade bags for the situations you would be dealing with occurred to me. Find prestocked bags and look at the lists. Often the discussion of training vs equipment comes up and the usual conclusion is that with enough training one can do without certain items of gear as some things can be used for multiple purposes. Make sure you are focusing a lot of time on training/education and you will be better off even if you forget something. Talk to other providers working with you and see what they use. I hope some of this helped. Good luck!

Dust, what do you mean about civilian medics? Are these KBR type guys hired as civilian contractors to provide services to the military or an NGO which operates near by? I know at one point Blackwater was hiring EMTs/Medics but I doubt that is what you are referring to.

My name is Dan...and I am an EMS addict. Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery, right? I'm a NYS EMT-B with a volunteer ambulance corp that provides BLS service to my college campus and also a member of a fire department at home. I am in EMS because of the high salaries, gorgeous patients, low stress working environment, and the fact that I can have 10 light bars on my car and impress people with my NYPD style EMT badge which is worn around my neck or kept on my belt at all times. /sarcasm Seriously though, I started participating in wilderness search and rescue a number of years ago through the USAF Aux. and got interested in the medical side of SAR. Started pursing that interest by joining an ambulance corp to get some experience and training. I know, I know a little more than when I started but I also know I still have a hell of a long way to go. Looking to do WEMT, PHTLS, PEPP, and maybe a few other courses within the next year or so. I understand the importance of training and education over whacker swag and have already learned a lot from just lurking around the forum. Being corrected and occasionally ripped apart is part of learning and growing and I'm open to it. I have a feeling one of the members in a hotter climate will get around to doing this eventually. EMS is not a stepping stone for me and I'm not a pre-Med student. I am planning on sticking with the prehospital side of medicine. It's about time I joined and started interacting. I am a fan of spell check, proper grammar, and punctuation but if I do slip up from time to time I have no doubt that it will be pointed out to me.