Don1977

Yeah, an EMS crew did something akin to that with an "intox"in DC they found in a park who they labeled as drunk and dropped off at the hospital. He died. If the police want to take responsibility for a possible hypoglycemic, seizure patient, or head injury going ahead and croaking in their lock up, well, good on them.

I remember once when I was still working in Jersey some police officers showed up on a 16 year old seizing before we did. Apparently while he was still post-ictal he became agitated and violent. One way you could say it is that the officers used force that was not completely necessary to restrain the patient. Another way of saying it was that they beat the living shit out of him. Friends of yours, PA?

Hmm, Ill have to ask around, might be.

My service has 2 bariatric stretchers that can hold up to 1600 lbs a piece, and trust me we use them damn things almost everyday. I have been sore after a few fat asses, but never pulled anything, yet.

The majority of calls here are elderly falls or the drunks that get beat up.

Any problems, you can PM me, Richard B, and we can talk.

CONTENT REMOVED - ADMIN

I do not think that EMS should physically take down patient. That is police job, that is what they are trained for. After they have patient secure then we can check medical condition. I do not think all emotionally disturbed patients really need an ambulance to transport them. Often they need a mental health professional to evaluate them and police can transport them just as well as we can. If we transport a violent patient they must be in restraints and have law enforcement riding with us.

THANK YOU! Agree....somewhat! If they are violent then I feel we should not transport them PERIOD, with or w/o restraints. Throw them in the paddy wagon and ship them to jail.

WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THIS THREAD HAS BEEN HIJACKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you want to argue this damn topic go to Firehouse.com forums with the rest of the wackers and blue light crusaders! As a LONG time volly your posts insult me. I behave professionally at my VFD and am a Professional at my FD. Yeah, so I get paid. So what , you don't. Doesn't make it more heroic. As for Fuck the IAFF,

YOU SNIVELING IGNORANT LITTLE TWIT!! DON'T YOU REALIZE THAT ALMOST ALL OF THE SAFETY IMPROVEMENTS IN THE FIRE SERVICE ARE A RESULT OF THE IAFF FIGHTING FOR THEM??? HOW DARE YOU DISMISS THE HARD WORK BY MY UNION BROTHERS THAT HAS MADE IT SAFER FOR YOU AND ME TO FUNCTION AS FIRE FIGHTERS!!!! GO TO FH.COM WITH YOUR TIRED IGNORANT BOMBASTIC GARBAGE AND PICK A FIGHT. YOU ARE A PRIME EXAMPLE OF THE ATTITUDES THAT ARE WRONGWITH FAR TO MANY VOLS. :evil: :evil:

Before you decide to deride me for my stand, know that I am an officer in my states Vol firemans association. This is not an anti vol post, just an anti moron post.

Wow.....

Please don't damage your credibility here by playing word games. You may BS the general public with that worn out chiche', but I've been at this business for nearly thirty-five years, so you're not fooling me. I don't determine a provider's professionalism by their salary. But, the fact is, if firefighting (or EMS) is not your paid, career profession, you are not A professional. Just because you are professional (which you very well may be), does not make you a professional. And just because somebody else is a professional does not mean they are necessarily professional. We all took high school English here. We know what the word means.

As for respect, who in the world are you talking about? Who respects you? The kids who see you in your uniform? The people in distress who are just happy that somebody showed up, paid or not? Puhleeze. As Asys said, the fire service doesn't respect you. Professional EMS doesn't respect you. The hospital staff doesn't respect you. The cops despise you. They all think you are a wannabe. And the general public is oblivious to you until you show up at their emergency, and even then, they usually take you for granted because you are doing only what is expected of you. You have to seriously be stroking yourself to be feeling any respect for being a volunteer fireman.

Respect and a fin will get you a crappachino at Starbucks.

Wow, dust, Iraq must be getting to the brain...

I don't know what dream land your coming from, but here we are well respected. The town im a fire fighter with has a paid crew and we are the volunteers that COVER THERE ASS, the boro likes us more because we are not cocky and arrogant and we do not have a budget that is killing the town like they do, in a few years they will be by the wayside as council told us last month. We get more RESPECT...hmm..theres that word again..then they do. I put my bunker gear on the same way they do.

As for the town I work in in the EMS side, yes paid EMT, volley FF, we are respected...wow...that word again..their recognize us at all times not just when the drunk idiot is bleeding, but at the store as well getting dinner.

My point is the shit about "paid is professional" is a crock, we are all pros, whether paid or volley, or we would not be in our departments/services.

Respect by who? Not the IAFF, that's for darn sure. Let's not go on the volunteer/hero/ego-trip, I made some homemade chili and I'm out of alka-seltzer.

Never said anything about being a hero or an ego trip . Fuck the IAFF. I have my opinions about them too. I do the same thing a paid FF does, I put my gear on the same way they do, only there paid im a volly....

Thats mild compared to the Nursing home's here

Hmm, so as a volunteer fire fighter Im not professional? Hmm, interesting. Try "career" fire fighter.

Volunteers are professional too, get more respect because we don't get paid to do it.

Responed to a home for a "routine" psyche transport. A patient with suicidal ideations. Arrived on scene and the police inform me that not only is she suicidal, but she also threatened to stab her mother. Pt is a 14y/o female with a past history of Bi-polar.

Went inside with police escort and tried to explain what was going to happen (ride nicely with the paramedic or ride nasty in handcuffs and various other restraints.) Apparently I was no so convincing and she assulted me (okay, she hit me in the arm as hard as an average 14y/o female can). I guess what I am trying to say is that I got beat up by a 14y/o girl for my first assult. How embarrassing. The police really put it to her, but to her credit she put up a good fight. I can laugh about it, you guys take it and roll with it if you want to.

Thats why EMS should not deal with psyche emergencies!!!!! Police matter! Like I said before!

Um....wow

If you tell me you dont want transported or treated, I don't argue, cya! I will tell you what could happen and that jazz and to call us back if you change your mind.

We have a town here in Pittsburgh area (Monroeville) that has those, useful, especially when i found out that the strobes lights on two of our trucks sets them off!

Fire monkey???

Didnt know I was an animal. How about "firefighter"

If patient needs no medical interventions enroute to any location, they should not be in an ambulance. IMHO most ambulance services that do that type of work do so because it is so easy to defraud the government. These patients could be safely transported by a taxi, but based on some comments, taxi drivers are all some people on here are anyway.

Just like an interfacility psyche transport, call a damn taxi or for the violent person have a county sheriff do it in a paddy wagon. What am I going to do for a person wanting to kill someone??? sounds like he needs to go to jail.

Heres a patient of mine the other night... get a guy who has been in jail a year, gets released 1 friggin day, goes to work, fights with a guy, literally pushes him off ladder and beats his ass...and the guy "needs psych help"!!!!! BULLSHIT!!! He needs to go back to friggin jail!!! the man has Homicidal Ideations! WHAT THE HELL YOU WANT ME TO DO?!?!?!!?!?! Transport him in a police van!! Allegheny county Sheriffs don't do anything, let them transport them!!!!

Most interfacility transports here are for upgrade of care or insurance reasons, most are legit.

Pittsburgh EMS has had 2 medic cycles for a while now, they use them at special events.

Okely dokely. First off, the notion of Fire responding to every single EMS call is BS, and a scam. Now that we have such things as fireproof buildings, automatic sprinkler systems, smoke detectors, and lack of things such as wood stoves and oil lamps, the number of structural fires is very, very small. To keep call numbers up, they respond on EMS jobs. The only EMS job a non-EMS fire company needs to go on is either an entrapment, a technical rescue, or a full blown cardiac arrest with a difficult location. Thats it. Period. End of story.

As for EMS responding to fire assignments, first of all, to the whiners who say "why do we have to respond to ..." Listen, if you are blessed with an municipal area who is willing to throw some money at you so you can have your ambulance and do some good, just shut the F up and go where they send you. Don't think we need to go to the dumpster fire? Probably not. But we'll still go, then we can say "hey, do you need us?" and then they can say "no, were good, its a dumpster fire," then we can go get coffee or listen to the radio. There are worse jobs in the world, and if you plan on only responding to legitimate medical emergencies, you are going to be sorely disappointed. Be glad you have quarters to go back to in the first place.

I totally agree!

Eye for eye!

You want to kill people by shooting them in head, then thats what should happen to you, USA is too lineate!

I am actually happy as an EMT.

I know people who have taken it 4 times and haven't passed yet, I don't know what there reasons are for not passing. I don't have the money or time to keep taking it, and thats the problem I have now, no time or money to do it.

My company will help im sure, but its a two year commitment, I cant promise them another 2 years, never know what the future leads.

Thanks for everybodies input.

We respond to too many "fire standbys".

Although some companies modify it, we have a county protocol to be dispatched on working fires, high risk alarms (nursing homes, high rises, factories that make dangerous stuff, etc). And gas leaks.

Unless there are injuries or entrapment, we respond without lights and sirens. We usually don't make it to the scene before we are cancelled.

We are dispatched on too many fire calls now, I wouldn't want to go on all of them.

That said, every now and again it is fun to pull hose, or throw ladders for the fire monkeys.

I agree with you...

I here this everyday where I work, other companies get calls and its "station xxx acknowledges call, standing by in station"

This happened just 20 minutes ago for a odor of natural gas at a sewage plant, VFD arrives with an active gas leak, and of course the EMS is standing by, VFD gets mad because thy arent tehre and requested them to the scene, the EMS was kinda mad they had to respond.

Now I have to respond to every call my VFD in this town go to. I agree with taht. Sure it could be a wire down or small trash fire, or the 5 alarm building fire or train derailment. I feel that no matter what it is, ANYBODY can get hurt, so why not respond. Isnt that what you are there to do?? Isnt that what you are paid to do???

So sorry if taht brush fire interupted your precious playstation game or the 4 AM CO alarm interupted your sleep. GET OVER IT! thats what you get paid to do!

It just shows me who is lazy and who is not!

Now what are your opinions about this??

I've been EMT 6 years now and Im still not ready to take Paramedic, I want to take it when im well and ready, i dont want tio be one that takes it 10 times before tehy pass it...

I havent had a big enough fire here yet, but I bought bottled water for fires and big shit that may happen here, I am also a member of the Emergency disaster services, so as soon as it is a confirmed working fire, upon my arrival, I will call a canteen in, especially in extreme temperatures.

We had an EMT here tell anotehr new employee that after every patient you fix up the stretcher and make it perfect.....and put a mint on the pillow, like a hotel.

Well, the newbie fell for it..................................Starlight mints are good!