paraloco

See kids, you really need to listen to the voice in your head that says don't transfer an unstable patient. You may get a lot of grief/retaliation from your supervisor. Might even get fired when the ER director calls your company's owner. There are other EMS jobs down the road. The crew could have insisted a neonate nurse and a respiratory therapist accompany them. Maybe they were a young crew, just glad to be there. It's not worth it.

There is an exception for military personnel. Solution: Get her to join the National Guard. Not only will they help pay for her college, as well as giving her some valuable career training and life experience, but she'll then be eligible for a CHL.

Great idea! Last night we were discussing strategies to pay for her to go to Sam Houston. I brought up going into the military. Didn't even think of Nat. Guard. Thanks Dust.

I recently began taking a class with my daughter. She'll be going off to college soon, and I wanted her to have a little self-defense know-how. The instructor told us that we'd have to do about a thousand reps to get the moves into muscle memory, and then do them frequently after that. The stuff we are learning is awesome, perfect for a soft & slow dad. It's not meant for extended altercations, but to end it in about 30 seconds or less. Its a mix of martial arts moves that the instructor came up with. I really want to buy my daughter a gun, but I think 21 is the age for CHL in Texas. Might have to settle for a taser, definitely a knife. She's learning situational awareness, de-escalation, and common sense measures to take to avoid dangerous situations. I've been able to tell her about patients I've taken care of who would have avoided injury with more awareness of their surroundings.

I should have mentioned, everything is out. There is no electricity, no phones, no NOTHING.

You stumble around looking for something to begin to do and people start to arrive into town on foot, horses and whatever else they can get to the town with.

They are all looking towards you and your fire house since you are the only medical and fire personnel in the 50 square mile radius.

There were reports of a blinding flash as well as you can see multiple other large towers of smoke in the distance and on the horizon.

You begin to suspect - "this aint gonna just blow over"

What as an emergency management person are you going to do?

Your closest big city in about 100 miles away = population 1.5 million

The next city that you might be able to call on for resources in a town of 25K and about 30 miles away and from the looks of it there is a large cloud coming from it's vicinity.

I'll bet you wish you had that Whacker EMS bag that was posted about here a little over 6-7 months ago. Remember that bag?

What do you need to set up first? Triage or security?

You do have a small 20 bed hospital in your town.

Arm yourself. There's no government anymore to help you. Consider those post-apocalyptic movies as training films. Standard of care goes out the window. Grab every canned good you can find. EMS is a luxury your brave new world can't afford. The street gangs, police and anybody else wanting a ride will be hunting down those antique car collectors, and relieving them of ownership, in short order. Your priorities need to be water, food, and ammunition. All those 1.5 million folks (the survivors, that is) will be leaving their unsustainable city, and come looking for food.

It's 11am and you are sitting around the station waiting for your first call. I know, not a busy service. You hear a huge explosion that rattles even your firestation/EMS station walls. Immediately your television goes out as well as the computer turns off.

You exit the building to see what is going on and you see what appears to be a pillar like cloud coming from approximatly 5 miles away.

All your services for your city are housed in the same building. Your resources are as follows

2 ambulances

2 pumpers

1 ladder truck

1 rescue truck

and 1 tanker truck

The police resources are 2-3 officers on per shift and your county officers and state patrol comprise 1-4 additional personnel per shift.

You can see large amounts of smoke from where the pillar of smoke was.

You notice that there is only one vehicle moving along the road your station is on. This road is the main drag of your town and it normally has many vehicles moving along at any time. The vehicle moving along is a 1960's era car.

What do you do now?

You have not been toned out and there are people standing around outside their places of business looking towards your station as they expect for you all to know what to do.

Go with this.

It was a small nuclear detonation, which produced an electromagnetic pulse. This killed anything with solid state electronics, which is dang near everything now. The 60's era cars did not have electronic ignition. That came in the mid 70's. Time to think START triage on a large scale. You unfortunately are too close to the problem to do much. Everyone who can needs to bug out and not look back, in an upwind direction. This is a job for Homeland Security and FEMA. Tell everyone who will listen as you are LEAVING by horse, dogsled, sedan chair, etc. Elbows and @ssholes headed for the horizon

Hey!

Has anyone found a good site for online paramedic practice exams. I found a couple of sites, but before I drop money to register for them, I was hoping someone could give me some input.

thanks

Yeah, the one I'm doing now. Gotta renew my NR by exam again, didn't get enough CE hours. Go to Prenhall.com/emtachieve I think it cost 32 dollars. There are 4 tests that you can take as many times as you want, plus quizzes from different sub-scales. I was in a bind 2 years ago, and an instructor friend of mine told me about this site. Keep taking the tests until you score about 85 consistently.

Hi Toni, the more Texans the better.

I go similarly.

After evaluating the illness or injury...

If they want to go, an officer will cuff and leg chain them, they either get placed in, or walk UNDER LEO ESCORT (!), into my ambulance, and off we go to the nearest appropriate ER. On completion at the ER, the accompanying LEO calls the precinct, and a patrol car responds to transport the prisoner where they next go, "in the system".If they decide they don't want to go to the ER, I have them sign the Refused Medical Assistance (RMA) line on my Electronic readable Pre-hospital Care Report (E-PCR), and have a LEO, preferably the arresting officer, sign as witness to the RMA, and go to "Available for assignment" status.

BioShield 2 Chemical Agent Wash Bioshield a Division of Forensic Products, Inc. Raleigh, NC 27624

(800) 572-4603 www.faurotforensics.com

We have a product called bioshield which dissolves the pepper oil. You spray it on the affected area, including the eyeballs, and blot it off with a towel. When I go back to work on Sat., I'll look at a bottle and see if there is contact info for the company. We've been using it for years with good results. The police mostly use the taser now, and we have to respond to remove the barbs.

When we used paper run reports, I used the SOAP format. I hate the way the ePCr's print out. On the old reports, there was a box for the CC. I'd write the first thing the patient said after I asked what was wrong. "My babydaddymomma hit me with a baseball bat" or "I'm in danger" The way the report was laid out, it was easy to follow every step of the assessment and treatment. I have to use the comments section frequently now to correct erroneous charting from the drop down menus. There is no option for cataracts or missing eyes. There is no child or infant GCS scale. When I have an infant for a patient, I have to chart gcs 15, then in comments I write 'appropriate for age'. I do have to admit that the epcr alleviates the problem of poor penmanship. I'm told our collection rate has improved.

To hell with cake, let's have a birthday beer!

I just got back to Texas from a family trip to Walt Disney World. Out of curiosity, I looked into who provides EMS there. I saw that Reedy Creek uses FF/Paramedics on their ambulances, and 40-hour paramedics who respond in the parks on golf carts. (They call them MARC units). So I am curious how that works out. How much do they pay their 40 hour guys? Are they the red-headed stepchildren, just waiting for an opportunity to get on the med unit? Do they get enough OT to lived on? Would it be a good retirement job, or is it better for a youngster? I looked at job descriptions for workers in the theme parks. Most were between $8 and $10 per hour.

Considering that...

1. It's easy to edit boarding passes printed at home (internet check in).

2. The 9/11 terrorists all had proper ID.

3. At the time of ID check at TSA Security Theater, the ID is checked against the boarding pass and not against any sort of watch list.

...how does ID checks improve our security?

The old Soviet Union required internal passports for travel. hmmm

To make a living wage you'll need to work as a paramedic for a municipal 911 agency or a well-paying private. I don't know how well the privates pay or who they are.

Reputable places to work: Montgomery County Hospital District (MCHD) EMS, Cypress Creek EMS, Northwest EMS (kinda slow/small system but if you can get past that they pay pretty good)

Places that could be questionable: Harris County ESD-1 (it's what you make of it, really...I've heard stories of just shady, shady things going on at this agency, but they pay well and you WILL get experience with lots of critical patients), Cy-Fair VFD (cronyism has been a problem in the past, protocols are lackluster and I hear that you don't get first responders on many calls)

Places I know nothing about but might be good: Atascocita VFD, Crosby, Clear Lake Emergency Medical Corps (CLEMC)

Places to Avoid: Any of the 200+ private EMS companies unless you do your homework and find one that might be tolerable

LaPorte would be a good fit for ex-military folks. They like shiny badges, collar brass, and polished shoes. Go across the Fred Hartman bridge into Baytown, and its much more laid back, and better paid. (At least when I was there)

All please note, that this is in a non EMS discussion area, as it is not EMS related.

When the US went to the digital HDTV from the old analog signals, I lost a bunch of stations.

As of this time, I have spent over $100 on antennas for use with one new HDTV, and 2 converter boxes with as many old style TVs. (I also have a baby portable HDTV, picking up both analog and digital, but not too well.)

FiOS has the neighborhood wired for computers, but not TV, and the last roof-top antenna we had was blown down by Hurricane Donna in September, 1960.

Yeah, folks, I'm using Rabbit Ears.

I can see one of the transmit sites from the street in front of my house (Empire State Building), but know some of the stations I used to watch are located in the Meadowlands in New Jersey, and others are in Garden City, Nassau County.

I have 4 TV sets, in different rooms in the house, and I don't have the same channels on any of them. The living room won't play channels 9, 11, 13, or 25. The dining room won't show 7, 11, or 13, but shows a number of duplicate Spanish language stations (not a help, I don't speak Spanish). I have a set in the spare bedroom that is losing 11, and a mini-TV in my room, that, dependant on what time of day, or what day, decides what stations I can, and not be able to, watch.

The HDTV "Panel" antennas are not cutting it, nor was the Hi Def antenna that looked like a set of the older Rabbit Ears. Even though the Panels are supposed to be omni-directional, they most certainly are not! I cannot get to the roof for a house antenna (Momma B refuses, and with my knees, that is for the better), and a rota table antenna would mean we could lose signals for one being watched in one room, when trying to watch another station in another room.

Can anyone give me the name of a good omni-directional antenna, for use in a wood frame house? Or suggestions of what to do?

Thanks to any and all respondents, in advance.

Look at the directions to make your own on youtube. My daughter moved out, and does not have cable. I made the antenna per the directions. Turns out, she comes back home almost every day to use the internet. So I gave it to my father-in-law who lives out in a rural area. Next time I saw him he said, " It looks just like a satellite picture, I swear to God!" Its ugly, but it does work.

Back in the 80s I worked for a guy named Steve Diamond in Port Arthur, Texas. He had a large collection of professionally restored (I mean to brand new) antique ambulances. I think he lives in Austin now, used to own MetroCare. I bet he'd know where to find stuff for your project.

Don't have one.

We add notes in the dispatch screen on the mdc without generating a report #. Notes such as: resident inadvertently activated lifeline device, Residence/vehicle unoccupied-driver fled on foot per bystanders, resident requests assistance to potty chair, PD matter, etc. It shows we actually checked into what the situation was, but did not initiate care.

Where exactly is here? Paramedics in Raleigh/Durham make more than $10 an hour.

S.E. Texas pm me if you want to know specifically.

Bottom line, is it possible to make 75k + a year as a medic in North Carolina with overtime if starting at the top of the pay scale based on experience in some areas? My wife would like to stay home with the kids.

Thanks,

TBS

Doubt it. One of our medics was there when he came back from Iraq. His new wife was from there. Marriage tanked and he headed back west. He said he was making 10 dollars an hour in a busy 911 system. I work an extra 12 hours maybe every other pay period. (26 pay periods) I'll bust 75 k this year.Cost of living is higher in Raleigh/Durham than here, from what my friend tells me.

I'll pass the woed about Dale. Need to pass the word about one of my co-workers. His name is Rusty, and he was barely out of the classroom and doing his FTO time when he became septic. He has ulcerative colitis, and it ruptured. He was on a vent in ICU for a long time, is still in the hospital, and will not likely work again. We did a link sale, and there's a 4-man scramble coming up soon.

I've never seen anything remotely like this list. I have seen posted at the station a Heads-Up type notice about a patient in our area that was on a Flo-Lan drip, and what to do if we responded to that person. I've also seen face sheets for frequent flyers in the desk, for when they don't have their ID or insurance cards. This is probably some kind of violation.

If there is no chance of there being human patients on the scene, why not help? Made a fire stand-by in a trailer park. It was confirmed that nobody was home. FD found a pit bull under a bed, unconscious. It had inhaled alot of thick smoke. We were out of service anyway on the stand-by. We administered blow-by O2 with a NRB mask. The dog started to regain consciousness. Animal Control transported to the doggie ER. No harm done. Goodwill done.

Harris County ESD 1 is good place to work. Montgomery County Hospital District is too. Depends how far you want to drive. Baytown and LaPorte have 3rd service EMS. Pasadena uses a contractor for 911, but they are "mother, may I?" about everything. You wanna use your skills? Try one of the services around Houston. You are close enough to bypass the local hospitals and take trauma straight downtown. Houston is notorious about the little services that pop up like cockroaches. A friend of mine worked for the state. He was made to back off enforcement of some of these little services " Because that's their livelihood"

anyone in here a recent past or present employee at Calhoun County? if so PM me.

I'm tossing around the idea of getting a peace officer certification. I'd use it for part-time employment, maybe full-time when I retire from EMS. Need some guidance. How old is too old to get started? (for issues like civil service, pension, etc. Thinking there must be sites like this one for LEOs. know any?