firedoc5

Dust, stop exposing yourself. :bootyshake:

Quoted:

You can also buy an O2 wrench….

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Right now I don't have enough dead presidents to buy a tongue depressor. :sad5:

I agree that Galls would be your best bet. If I may suggest, look around for boots made by Caterpillar. They are steel toed, steel shanked, and very comfortable, especially for being a work boot. I have a fairly small foot size and I found them to fit quite well. Let me know what you find.

I've always used a Sprague/Rappaport. Haven't really found anything better.

A trick of the trade I found out is that you can shorten the tubes and it will help hear better, especially in the back of the ambulance. Try it, you'll like it.

"All the Young Dudes" - Mott the Hoople

Well, Fluff. I did. I ran with the local volunteer serv. for about 10 months while still in High School. A couple of months after I graduated I put my application in at a private serv. On Aug. 2nd they gave me a call and I started on Aug. 5th. I turned 19 on Sept. 20th. But that was almost 25yrs. ago. So it can be done. But it does depend on the demand for EMT's in your area. And with a lot of services and states you can't drive until you are 21. So they might not hire you because they would prefer someone who can not only tech. but drive when needed. They changed the law in IL that you had to be 21 to drive when I was 20. So even though I started out being able to drive I had to stop driving and wait about three months until I turned 21.

You may have to wait until you are 21 before getting hired. If so, just run with a volunteer serv. and work doing some other job. Just have patience. You'll get there. :thumbup:

"I Walk the Line" -Johnny Cash 8)

Back in '84 I got my first full time EMS job. It was literally 24hrs. a day, six days a week. You actually lived at the ambulance building. There were between 3 & 5 full timers. My first pay check I cleared $110.00. Yes, it's not a typo. It was taken in consideration that we were being furnished housing. There were no benefits. At first there wasn't even workman's comp. until the state made it mandatory. If someone got hurt they just paid out of what was considered petty cash. You went everywhere in an ambulance. Whether it was to go eat, the store, wherever. We'd even go as far as going on dates. Whoever you were dating had to understand that if there was a call we'd have to leave them, but we'd be back. But sometime's they'd have plans with someone that if they did get left that they have someone pick them up. And when that would happen many times they'd just go to the ambulance building to wait for you to get back. Luckily they were understanding, for the most part. Several of them did get interested in EMS eventually.

I know that kind of thing is unheard of now. But that's how we operated. Later on laws changed and other things and the work hours did improve. Pay not a whole lot. In '87 me and two other's were top paid at $5.50/ hr. But there were so many of us that were so determined to become paramedics and were committed enough that we put up with it. It wasn't until I got on the fire dept. that I was finally getting paid enough to be able to have a life outside of my profession. At the fire dept. in '89 I started making $25,000/ yr. But I was being paid only $250/ yr. as a paramedic.

And I appreciate it. Thanx. :thumbup:

Yikes, I'm kind of suprised by some of the responses.

Some of us are old enough that we believe that when you benefit from something, you give something back.

When I can, I send money, when I can't I try to be productive in the forums. When I'm really feeling like a slacker I prowl for, and welcome the new users to the site.

This place can be an amazing resource, one that you can't easily replace with a book, video, or even a classroom.

If you've gained from it, perhaps it will make you feel better to try and give something back to make it grow...make it better. If you have no desire to repay some of what you've been given, then you'll never understand the reason for Capt's post, should ignore it and go about your business...

I think he was simply suggesting that you "Pass it on" when/where you can.

Dwayne

I really try to be productive here like a consultant, tutor, or mentor. If there's any way I can help by giving advice or share my education and experiences, I'll do my best. :hello2: Since I can't work the field any more it's the least I can do.

fire, more than likely the other department heads got their heads together and said they didn't want an interloper doing what they do.

What I mean is that those department heads felt threatened that if you could come and do the job of their techs and do it for less money then the hospital would logically consider hiring people like you to replace the high cost of those staff members.

More than likely you were paid far less than a lab tech or a resp therapist and the department heads were threatened.

No doubt you did a fine job but I would bet that is how it played out.

That's pretty much what I figured. When ever I had a job interview after that I'd have to explain it. For the most part people did understand. And it was great experience.

I've done several sporting events. School games, IHRA drag racing, out-law and USAC dirt track car and motorcycle, pro-wrestling, Special Olympics, even bowling. But I'd say 98% of what we did were for spectators really. Whether for medical or for crash/fire/rescue, for the most part it was a blast. A doc friend of mine has done the infield care at the Indy 500 for several years. I almost got to go with him one year.

One thing I never did get to do was major music concerts. Had the chance a couple of times but didn't get to do it. :dontknow:

At one time I worked at a hospital. A friend of mine became Director of Nursing and I was talking with him and he had an idea that he shared with me. He was wondering how well having a Paramedic working in-house in different dept.s. He called the position a "Patient Care Tech." With the qualifications I had I would work in one dept. then another when some extra help was needed. One day I worked in Respiratory, the next I might work in Phlebotomy, another day I might work in patient transport. At first I stepped on some toes. Like some in Respiratory. didn't like the fact that I could entubate and they couldn't, or in phlebotomy I could draw ABG's and they couldn't. Also with phlebotomy I proved that I could hit veins on patients that were very difficult. It wasn't that I was better at it, it's just that when you are in the back of an ambulance you get use to hitting a moving target and you get experience at using large bore IV's. Even though their seemed to be some jealousy in some of the departments, I got along with co-workers for the most part. I did have some supervisors try and write me up for little piddly crap that didn't amount to anything and they tried to run me ragged, making me hustle all over the hospital. It was not uncommon for me to work in several different depts. during some shifts. But the job only lasted about five months. It was sort of experimental at that time. They decided to stay with the old system.

"Walk on the Wildside" - Bob Dylan

There was a medic in another system that got caught. Evedently the teenage patient wasn't as incoherent as she let on to be. The medic thought since she was out of it, why not?. She reported the groping and actual penetration the next day. I knew the guy because he had ran in our system for a short time and he attended some of the classes I taught. He actually seemed to be one of those guys that in a million years you wouldn't have thought he'd do something like that.

Jan 30, 10:29 PM EST

Turns Out It Wasn't Just False Labor...

NORWOOD, Ohio (AP) -- A woman who had been told that her pains were false labor pains gave birth in the driveway of her home. Charryse Brooks, 25, had gone to a hospital about 2 a.m. Sunday because she thought she might be in the early stages of labor. She wasn't due with her first child until Feb. 22.

Hospital workers told her she was experiencing false labor and told her to go home. She tried to sleep, but the pain increased and her contractions got stronger.

Finally, she insisted that she had to return to the hospital, but it was too late. By the time she got to the car, the pain was so intense, she couldn't open the car door.

"She looked at me, right in the eye, so calmly, too. She said, 'Tim, the baby's here,'" said her husband, the Rev. Timothy Brooks.

He reached to catch the baby, a 4-pound, 3-ounce girl the couple named Mackenzie Nichole Brooks, in the leg of the sweat pants his wife was wearing.

"It was just so fast," Charryse Brooks said. "It was like 'Boom!'"

Brooks, 26, who had been preparing a sermon for the one-year anniversary of becoming pastor at the Norwood Church of the Nazarene, took his wife and baby, still attached by the umbilical cord, to the hospital. His congregants in this Cincinnati suburb had to do without a sermon.

"They just went ahead and sang," he said.

Gotta take care of each other. Hope they get a comendation.

"Every Which Way But Loose" -Glenn Campbell

I've sent the link to here via e-mail a couple of times. But I don't think I've seen anyone that I've sent it to on here, yet. Maybe if I do a little persuading.

I'm going to try and add the link to my web page. Now if I can just learn how to do it. I've relied on friends to do those sort of things for me.

"House of the Rising Sun" - The Animals

If you're looking for different types of games, here's one from a Lynyrd Skynyrd forum.

You start with a title of a song, such as "Born to Be Wild". The next would be "Take a Walk on the Wild Side", then "Take the Money and Run".

You just take key word(s) and come up with the next song title that has that same word.

Clear as mud? And you can give the artist's or group's name if you want, but not required.

And there are other games that I know of. Who knows, may have to start another area just for games other than Funny Stuff.

If anyone else wants to take a crack at it, I'll start. How about....

"Dark Side of the Moon"- Pink Floyd

There hadn't been very many high school students take the EMS class here, but the one's that did had to show a maturity well beyond their years. I'd say about 70% that started the class were either dismissed or dropped out when it came to the issue of handling issues regarding mentally or emotionally mature.

And it's not just "young'uns", there were adults that didn't have the maturity for the class or the job.

I'm not sure how many high school students have taken the class since I had. That's been right at 25 yrs. ago. So my data may be off somewhat.

Don't immobilize someone "to cover my ass." Immobilize them because its the appropriate treatment for their presentation. If you go boarding people just because they fell then you're no better than the guy I know who tried to give O2/ASA/NTG/Albuterol/Lasix/Morphine to a woman with pedal edema.

And don't turn their clothes into handkerchiefs just because it's "OMGTRAUMATHEBOOKSAYSCUTEVERYTHING." If you weren't taught how to assess for pelvic injuries without trauma shears, you need to go retake the class somewhere else.

Excellent point. :-k

NREMT does not "govern" anyone. Not even the ones that have NREMT certification.

You can't even call them the national certification body for EMS, because quite a few states and thousands of providers don't have NR.

One problem I had was that IL has their own registry, or you could be cert with NREMT. But when I went to LA, they didn't have a state registry. They were only NREMT. This had been about 11 yrs. ago so it might have changed since then. At that time I was only state certified and there was no reciprocity between IL and LA. And I was facing having to take the entire class again if I wanted to be cert. in LA. Unfortunately I didn't stay in LA long enough to pursue it any further. A couple of years later I did move back to LA but didn't try to get certified. It was a three ring circus. At one time, prior to '83 I think, if you were IL certified, you were automatically nationally certified.

So it does depend on what state you are dealing with.

Have you ever noticed that you don't have to have weird sense of humor to be in EMS, but it helps. :tongue3: