StickEm

I don't think the podunk KS VFD guys knew what they were OBLIGATED to do in that instance, and therefor, they chose to do nothing until she lost consciousness. They put their county's nuts on the block by sitting by until she dropped. Here in GA, you are required by protocols and standing orders to bring them in if they are impaired from drugs or ETOH. By "bring them in", I mean call SO or local PD on scene and tell them to take the pt. into custody. We do it all the time. The COPD ladt who drank too much and is audibly wheezing and looks blue "refuses" Tx, and we're supposed to let her die? Nope. We call PD or SO and ask them to help. PD in that episode is supposed to get her onto the stretcher, and let you restrain her and then they SHOULD send a deputy to ride along into the ER. That deputy SHOULD babysit until the hospital psych administrator or at least the medical control Dr. signs off on said pt. Anything resembling the contrary constitutes pt. abandonment. HUGE LIABILTY.

I work with an openly gay female paramedic and really don't care what anyone is into sexually outside of work. She is a very good medic, and it's fun to check out women with her. we'll see some hot woman somehwere and I'll say, "Um, dang... she was hot." and vice-versa. When she started at this place, she went arounf putting up flyers for gay marches and stuff, and never hid that from anyone. I respect that a lot, because the only people who have "problems" with her sexuality are the shallow-minded bigots who I find to be offensive, to be honest. One woman there atually tried to get me to rat this gay medic out for a Pt. refusal/ no Pt. situation, and I declined since I don't want to start a bunch of shit there and she has a beef with the lesbian girl, not me. I have no love for the assholes in this world who want to further divide us all as people. So having said that, just be yourself. Be gay, be straight, be into plushie-play, or whatever. We're not living in the 50's, and if you live in a place where the people are lame and not very prgressive, MOVE. It's your life, DO something about it. If I was in your shoes, and some ass hle said, "What are you, a FAG?!?" (and I happened to BE gay,) I'd have said, "Hell yes, I am, you got a problem with that, asshole?!?"

I wasn't condoning shooting sprees by ripping on the news media. Of course I forgive them for being crass, I just didn't like seeing that headline -it was disrespectful. I didn't ever say the guy was just fine, or I would EASILY forgive him, but being a Christian, I feel like some pity is in order. He IS pitiful, after all. He was mantally disturbed. The editor in chief of the AJC is not.

Spot on, Asysin2Leads. That's exactly what I was getting to. Bunch of BS.

Good responses here. Here's a priority two from my last shift: Called to a sick person. We had a 61 y/o F CO leg pain; requesting (undisclosed hospital dowtown -40 miles away and out of county,). The shift commander said to tell her medicaid would only cover the NEAREST APPROPRIATE facility. we get there, and this 400 lb. woman is sitting in her wheelchair, bags all packed and on her lap. We ask what's wrong, etc, and she states she has PAD and a subsequent leg infection. Undisclosed medical facility downtown told her to come in TONIGHT for IV antibotic Tx, so she called us. We kindly explained that if she wanted to go to (hospital downtown,), she would have to pay cash up front; Medicaid would not cover that. We could however, take her to the nearest appropriate facility, a mile away, and let them request a transport to the downtown facility so Medicaid would cover it. She went along to the nearest facility. We explained that this is a 911 truck; we have to stay in the county unless medically necessary, and that she should not have called 911 for this. She said she would have called her normal transportation, but would have to wait three days. It is on the tip of my toungue to say, "Oh freaking well, then, lose 290lbs and get your life back under your own control." Again, not my problem, so I just help in a kindly fashion.

Yes, a sore day for VT. My prayers and thoughts go out to all involved. I, too forgive the shooter, he was obviously very disturbed, (understatement,). The only interview I saw was with a volunteer first-responder, and she did well when asked about training for this type of scenario, though she referred to it as a "Multiple Casualty Injury". Other than that, she did fine. One thing that has made the bile churn for me has been the way the news media can hardly contain it's joy at such a good news day. If they think by blandly stating in robotic monotone that "this is such a tragic incident." somehow covers up their secret glee, they are indeed mistaken. They are maggots who don't even wait for the corpses to rot a little before feasting copiously on them. THIS is the worst dishonor to the victims, IMO. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's headline read in HUGE letters, "BLOODBATH" across the front page. How crass. I'd like to choke the shit out of the editor. I would encurage all who read this to send the editor an e-mail here: jdwallace@ajc.com if so moved. -Deplorable. This type of low-brow journalism is unbefitting a major (albeit a liberal-rag,) paper in Atlanta. What's sadder still is this is the only paper we have here. Sorry I am off-topic a little...

Hmm. Some areas are worse than others. I know that Grady EMS is positvely SWAMPED with BS "My toe hurts; take me to Grady."-type calls, while some other areas, (more rural,) have legit calls and only BLS trucks. Where I work, it's 90% BS for 911 trucks, while the transports are usually always legit. Pt. is non-ambulatory secondary to injury or age, requests transport to (insert care-facility here,). I'd rather get up at 0300 for someone's non-ambulatory grandma than some ass who is faking a MVC injury. -Though I don't show it, I am generally annoyed by frquent flyers and the like. My favorite is when they say over and over that "I'm not joking, nobody believes me. This is serious!" even though they call four times a week. It's THOSE people who need to go to jail. The jerks that tie up an ALS truck because they don't get enough attention from anyone else. Can we press charges?