CBEMT

Like others, I had been thinking in the last few weeks that I should get back to the City and see what's going on. I hate, hate, hate beyond words that this is what it took to get me back here. Rob was gracious enough to meet someone he'd never met at an out of the way airport, drive him to CAP 2008, and treated him like an equal. For a reason I'll never understand he LOVED my avatar- said it always made him giggle a little when he saw me post. I still have the Dallas FD shirt he passed out as a gift at CAP, and in fact I was wearing it this past July when I responded to my first fire in my relatively new role as a volunteer firefighter. It became special then, but it's ever more special today. Like (chuckle) many other Citizens, I got into it with Rob about some of his out-of-the-box ideas for what EMS could and SHOULD be. And like most of those others, I learned something from it, became a better provider, but more importantly he made an advocate for EMS out of me. I think that could be Rob's biggest and most important legacy- the number of soldiers for EMS that he helped develop, 99% of which he never met or will meet. God speed Rob. Your work lives on, and you will not be forgotten. Kia Kaha.

Problem with several questions, most importantly being that #18 should have the same answer options as #17. Otherwise, your numbers are going to be off- the reason I answered No was because there wasn't the same N/A option.

But because it IS local protocol, it means we don't get to decide what's the best thing to do in the particular case. So you and Zippy treating us like we're morons because we follow our legal obligations pisses us off after a while. Clear enough?

Until somebody changes the rules? Everybody in my state, unless they meet the usual Biological Death criteria. Basically, if they're warm and relatively intact, they go. Trauma codes are a required station at our final practical (starts with a BLS trauma assessment, eventually degenerates into a code, etc). If you think that's backwards, wait'll you find out what our Biological Death criteria for pediatrics doesn't include.

It's also entirely possible that the officer managed to somehow survive, in which case, obviously, we wouldn't be able to locate anything about a trooper dying. These guys couldn't find anything about it either.

While within my protocols to do so, I prefer to avoid Albuterol for CHF, the same way as I prefer to avoid Lasix. I consider Albuterol in this situation as to be treating a symptom instead of the disease. While I have had plenty of wheezing CHF patients, I don't recall ever having to resort to Albuterol in order to eliminate the wheeze. Stick with Nitro, CPAP, and a ride to the hospital.

If it means buying anything, I don't anticipate seeing widespread pre-hospital use in my area anytime soon, at least amongst the agencies that actually get a decent number of arrests. There are one or two hospitals that I know are doing it so far, there may be others that I don't know of.

Absolutely, in the world where common sense is common. In the litigious swamp that is medicine, on the other hand, once we make contact with this idiot, we own him (or her). If they stop breathing in the back of the police car 10 minutes from now, we're going to have to explain why we "let" that happen.

What's the suit's problem? Is he trying to pretend that spanish TV has standards past which they will not treat women like meat?

+1 I almost choked when I read the post title, knowing how absolutely 100% wrong the supposition is. I'm dissapointed.

You KEDed her... INSIDE the ambulance? Jeez. She walked that far, put a collar on, throw the board on the stretcher, and have her lay down. KISS.

I think the only reason I lasted 5 years at a transport company because we also did emergency transports out of our contracted facilities. I could go from a nursing home to doctor's office run one minute to an unresponsive, hypotensive sepsis patient the next. ...And then back to a transport over to the wound care clinic after that. But there was always the next one.... Don't get me wrong, eventually I did burn out. It didn't affect my patient care, just my sanity. But the burnout had way more to do with our management, the trucks and equipment, and some of the morons we hired (and promoted) than it was the types of calls we ran.

You misunderstood me completely, Doc. The risk I referred to is the risk to us of getting plowed by a car while onscene fiddling with a KED. Therefore, risk: proven. Benefit of KED: unproven. I wish. Here the chief in command decides where the other apparatus go- and there seems to be more emphasis on keeping them OUT of traffic than protecting me from it (we don't have any highways). Unless its something horrendous that gets the whole road shut down, chances are I'm feet from moving traffic.

And it as easy to sue anybody and everybody for anything- or nothing- in Kiwiland as it is in the States? Otherwise, you know nothing about it.

One (1) KED required on all ambulances (therefore that's exactly how many there are), hardly ever used by any agency in the area. Hell, if you even get strapped to the backboard you're probably a friend of the crew in some departments... But I digress- back to the KED. If you consider that increasing the time spent onscene applying the device also increases the likelihood of a secondary collision that could take out you, your partner, your patient, or all of the above (risk), balanced against securing the patient's c-spine (benefit).... ...But also consider that the benefit can't be proven to actually exist, but the risk certainly has.....