katbemeEMT-B

All the CEVO (Controlled Emergency Vehicle Operations) classes I have taken state that when there are multiple lanes of traffic traveling in the same direction, an emergency vehicle running lights and sirens should travel in the lane farthest to the left allowing for other traffic to move right towards the shoulder. This is also done to avoid the necessity of quick maneuvers when vehicles are on the right shoulder.

There was a case a few years ago involving a 16 year old who shot another teenager over a pair of sneakers. His defense was that he was poor and couldn't afford the sneakers and felt the other teenager was taunting him by wearing these brand new, expensive sneakers. This caused him to go into a jealous rage and he shot the kid on the street. Mind you, the innocent teenager never said a word to the criminal but the jury still bought his story, feeling sorry for him cause he was poor and a minority, and found him not guilty of murder. They did find him guilty of man-slaughter and he was sentenced to 24 months at a juvenile facility and 10 years probation. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with people. Why is it so difficult for our peers to force others to take responsibility for the things they have done. And we wonder why the United States is going to hell. Hey, it's not my fault, blah, blah, blah made me do it.

Thank you for the reply. I will check it out.

I am wondering if anyone on this site would happen to know where I could find fleece material with EMS decor on it. I have been searching the net since before Christmas and have not found anything. My son recently received his EMT-B and is continuing on to paramedic and I would like to make him a fleece tie blanket. I would greatly appreciate anyone who may know where I can find this material. Thank you! Kat

What is it with males and their need to pee in shower? I live in a house with four males and I know more than one of them is peeing in the shower. Let me tell you that you can bleach all day long, but once that stench invades the porous surfaces of the tub, surround, and curtain, there is no getting it out. As for showering at work, well, I don't think so. I would rather stink than step foot in that disgusting thing. Plea to all males and females who pee in the shower... PLEASE STOP!!!

I can't say that I don't enjoy a good trauma, mainly because I know I still have so much to learn. As I progress in my schooling, I find myself assessing patients physiologically. As an example, severe trauma to a leg resulting in a artery bleed. Previously I would have applied pressure, wrapped it, splinted the leg, loaded the patient, and went. I now truly assess the patient to determine blood loss and what I need to do to stabilize him/her (ie: fluids for blood loss, pain meds to calm, transport decision). I look more from a physiological aspect of the entire body, not just the one wound. I look at how this injury to this particular part of the body is affecting the rest of the body. I also talk with my medic partners after the call to gain further knowledge, such as, why they did or didn't do a procedure or how they determined what type of care to administer. With that being said, I also enjoy the medical calls regardless of the origination. My thought is that regardless of the call, there is always something there for me to learn. Sometimes it might be simply holding the patients hand and comforting them, but I am improving my people skills. It may be a patient with a complicated medical history which enlists my critical thinking skills. It may be something that I am already familiar with but I can still learn from it. With every call my critical thinking skills improve, my senses are heightened, I become more aware of my surroundings and pick up on even little things that might otherwise be overlooked, and I learn to appreciate my good health. I am also learning to be more proficient and thorough when it comes to patient assessment and care. So while trauma gives me the adrenal rush I sometimes crave, all calls offer me a learning experience that will never be the same. So in response to the OPs question, yes I need good trauma call, but I also need the more mundane calls if I want to conitue learning.

What still confuses me is that the mother took the child to a clinic and the doctor made the decision to put the child and her mother in a taxi for a trip to a trauma center. Wouldn't common sense tell you (especially if you are a doctor), that if this child needed to be seen by a trauma team she should have been transported via ambulance? I would also like to know why it took the mother a month to bring this to the ambulance supervisor. If my child had been injured and the doctor from the trauma center told me she should have been transported via ambulance I would have started raising hell immediately. As I have previously stated, things just don't add up. I am grateful that the little girl is doing better, but what if something had gone wrong? Who would have been responsible, the medics or the clinic doctor? I will be curious to see how this turns out. I will also share information as I receive it, but it appears that they are trying to keep things pretty hush hush.

Meds apologize for not transporting injured Mound child A Waconia medical center is apologizing tonight after two of it's paramedics didn't bring a seriously injured child to the hospital. Instead they told the child's mother she could do it herself. Michelle Wickstrom called 911 last month after a television set fell on top of her 5-year-old daughter Breck. "She was on the floor, face down. I just grabbed her immediately. The back of her head was bleeding," said Wickstrom. When two paramedics from Ridgeview Ambulance arrived at her Mound home they told her it was not an emergency situation and suggested Wickstrom take the child in the be seen herself. She said the paramedics never once asked or offered to take her daughter by ambulance. "I was beside myself because I thought, you know, emergency people are supposed to be there to help us. and we got no help from them whatsoever," said Wickstrom. Breck eventually got eight stitches, had a fractured skull as well as bleeding in the brain. Doctors said her injuries could have been fatal without medical treatment. "We're embarrassed by this," said Robert Stevens, President and CEO of Ridgeview Medical Center. "I was livid. That is not the standard of care that we have here. That's not how we educate our paramedics." Stevens said the two paramedics have a combined 55 years of experience and just made an error in judgement. Both have been put on probation. They, along with all 55 paramedics on staff, will be retrained. The hospital is now reviewing all of its nearly 9,000 ambulance runs this year. After two weeks of bed rest and home care, Breck returned to kindergarten on Monday. This is why sometimes we should think twice about signing a patient. I know there is more to this story than what has been reported, but it was still a bad decision made by two very experienced medics. Additional information I heard was that the child was taken to a local medical clinic by her mother. They put the two in a taxi and sent them to a trauma center over 30 miles away in heavy traffic. My question is if the child had such extensive injuries, why did the medical clinic not call an ambulance. It would have been a different service that specializes in trauma? Things just don't add up.

I think it's stupid that we are certified to perform certain duties on the truck (IV, intubation, etc.), but we can't perform these duties in the ED because LPNs can't do them. What's even dumber, when one of the ED docs has to RSI and respiratory and anesthesia aren't available, who do they call? Yep, that's right, EMS!

I have heard stories about how females are treated by male partners or patients. I have to admit, I have never experienced this. I get along very well with my male partners. They treat me with respect when we are on a call. Back at the base we joke around and dish it back and forth. Neither of us are ever offended by the other. I must also admit that many times fire and PD will begin relaying information to me instead of my male partner. I accept the information and then relay it to him. Part of this may be because I know many of the fire guys, but I think it's also because my male partner goes directly to the patient and begins patient care.

First, let me apologize for what seems like abandoning my thread. I have been so busy between work and medic school. I must say that I was somewhat blown away at the number of responses. I did take the time to read every reply. Following my initial post, we again responded to one of the local colleges on an intoxicated student. In the process of attempting to load her (they always seem to be in difficult spots to access with the truck), our truck was damaged. I am not sure if my supervisor contacted the college or not, but we have not made very many runs up there since. I want to thank you all for the insight. I know that we will all have our own opinions on what is right and what is wrong, but I can say that I have learned from this thread and its many responses. As I progress through school, I will come back and ask more of all of you and will hopefully be able to gain even more knowledge.

I would guess the background in EMS is a stretch. Most people, especially those in EMS would refer to the above as "1500 and another at 0300".

Another case in point...an off duty EMT/paramedic student comes upon an accident close to her home. Rescue arrives and begins extrication. They ask her to get out of the way, but the ambulance crew (not associated with rescue and not the service she works for) tells her to stay there. A chain snaps while removing the roof of the car and injures her hand. She is now suing fire/rescue but not the ambulance service. The best part is she is claiming disability yet continues to play softball and racketball. This is the kind of crap that pisses me off.

No problem. I just wanted to ensure that you understood my postition.

If you read my post, I stated that I agree with Dust. I did not argue against his statement.

As an EMT, I can't agree with Dust more. I am there to support my partner, anticipate what my partner will need before he/she has to tell me, and tactfully remind him/her when they have forgotten something. I am also there to learn and grow as a caregiver so that when I am done with medic school, I will have a great basis for which to provide care and continue learning.

The drunks even drunker roomate

Both colleges have on-site EMS...they're the ones that call us. While they don't mind trying to fix the traumas and bringing back the diabetic, they have no desire to deal with the intoxicated students.

This is something that I have been thinking about quite a lot lately. The college includes an alcohol awareness session with orientation, but apparently they aren't getting through to the kids. I think that maybe if information came from EMS, they might take it much more serious.l It does scare me that this is becoming such a problem as my daughter is only a few years away from entering college and if I had to choose the college that would be prefect for the degree she will be seeking, it would be one of the ones that we transport from often.

I don't disagree, that is why I am looking for opinions on the subject. So let me ask you this, would you transport these students ALS or BLS? On a medic/EMT-B truck, would you put the medic in back or the EMT? sidenote: the medic does the on-scene assessment of the student.

I am looking for opinions on signing intoxicated college students. In the last couple of years, there have been several deaths due to alcohol poisoning at surrounding colleges. This has heightened the response of the colleges in our area when they encounter an intoxicated student. They immediately call 911, requesting EMS. We arrive on scene to find the normal vomiting young college student that basically needs to sleep it off. The downfall is that this takes our truck out of service not once, but several times a night, (especially on Friday - Sunday nights). Recently, we have been signing many of these students instead of transporting them as long as a friend, who is not intoxicated, can care for them. What would you do or how would you handle this?

I agree with this statement. Yes, we are each responsible for ensuring that we properly dispose of sharps, but we should also be aware of the possibility that there may be one lying around when we clean up the truck. I have always believed that there are two people on the truck to help each other. That means, if my partner forgets to do something, I do it and don't complain unless it is detrimental to a patient or the service. There are many times that I have to dispose of sharps. Even many small, rural services are using retracting needles. In a time when exposures can be life-threatening, I would think your service would want to protect the employees and save themselves from having to pay out benefits to some one who contracted HIV through an accidental needle stick.

Our service actually has an FTO (field training operations) manual which separates the training into phases. It allows the medic to become familiar with not only how our service runs and the areas within our PSA, but it also allows the employees to become familiar with how the new medics work. The average time for an employee's training period is six months. Ultimately, it is up the FTO officer whether an new medic is ready to fly solo. We currently have a couple that are very book smart, but lack in the field. This also holds true for EMT-Bs that are hired.

According to our instructor and the paramedic book we are using, it is considered abandonment to leave a patient with some one certified at a lower level than you regardless of where you live in the US. That would mean every time these medics assess a a patient then send him/her with a BLS truck, they are abandoning their patient and could be charged accordingly.

Absolutely will take it...I'm addicted to Coca Cola...Leave plaid down comforter