JCicco345

Our bls trucks don't do D-sticks. The patient is still sitting there, fire is on scene, and the sister is downstairs somewhere. She is no help.

Fire arrives on scene, and lend you one of their lights, you don't see anything else that is pertinent. Its hard to tell if there is blood in the feces, because its dried, but you believe there to be some blood mixed in with the feces. No med bottles laying around, no medical alert braclets, the patient is naked. Placed on 15 liters via non-rebreather.

Scene is safe. Inital impression was him sitting there with the straight ahead gaze, withdraws from painful stimuli, patient is non-verbal, doesn't make eye contact. Respirations are about 24/min. Skin pale and cool, non-diaphoretic. Pulse is 140, strong and regular. No other information was available from the sister. Fire was requested and dispatch, we also requested a police sgt to respond, however fire alarm informed us that it was shift change and they would try and have a sgt respond. Fire arrives within 4 minutes, no police responded.

Unknown why they fell, the patient just remains with his gaze forward and his non-werbal, he withdraws from pain. No apparent injuries, DCAP-BTLS negative, and as i mentioned he is just sitting on the floor with his back against the bed. No info from the patient since he is non-verbal, the sister states he is baseline caox4 and was talking earlier in the day. She refuses to give us meds/hx/all because she remains saying he doesn't need to go to the hospital. At this point the sister leaves the room and dissappears.

BLS unit sent out to a local residence for the fall with a leg injury. Arrive on scene to find a middle aged woman at the front door telling you "I don't know why they sent an ambulance, he just needs to go back into bed". After ascending to the second floor and making your way to the back bedroom, you find a male in his 50's sitting on the floor with his eyes open and his gazed focused forward. A quick look around the scene reveals that there are no working lights in this room, the only light is coming from the television, the floors are covered with a mix of random items, including old cigarette butts, empty beer cans, and an empty jug of wine. The matress is without any sheets or covers, and covered with what appears to be either blood or feces, its hard to see with the limited lighting. So what do you want to do and/or know. FYI: This is from a call that I ran recently, and we did not get police or fire dispatched with us, so if you think you need them just ask. I want to see how other people would have run this call.

"I don't think that municple employees should have death benefits provided by tax dollars. Many municple employees have death benefits provided by the town government. Towns can obtain life insurance policies as a package deal and thus provide death benefits to their own employees with a modest cost to the employee." But if they are giving the money to municple police and fire, then why wouldn't municple EMS get the money. Granted it is hard in some instances to serperate private vs. municple. What if you work for a private company but are working on a truck or doing a call for a municpality. I guess there a details to be worked out. All i was trying to say if you are covering municple fire and police, EMS should be in there.

Municipal employees work for the city/town and ultimately the state. If you are killed while doing your job that be covered by that bill. Firefighters and police officers work for the state and are covered why shouldn't EMS ?????? The reason they shouldn't cover private industry is that those people work for the company not the state. a for profit company in most cases. The companies are responsible in those instances.

EMS should definitely be included in the benefit. But i agree the private services should cover their own employees and the state should cover the public employees.

That's awesome.

At least with my experience there are few EMT schools that seem to provide an adequate education for their students. My advice would be since you are already in progress with that program, just do a majority of the studying out of the classroom and learn that most you can. Then most of your learning will come with on the job experience anyways. Most EMT programs around here anyways are too focused on passing the state exam and not on producing EMTs that will be able to work in the field. Whatever you decided to do good luck, and as they mentioned above bonus points for recongize the standards of the program are not up to par.

As far as the defib in the rain. I think as long as you don't put the patient in a puddle and then you youself being in the puddle, it should be fine. I agree with the people above, drop the strecher down a little and do compressions while walking along side the strecher.

I've run across several people who carry PDA's with medication, protocol programs on them. There's also been several post on here about it. I was looking into getting a PDA but there are tons of them out there. I already used the search feature on the city, but it hasnt been discussed. What is a decent PDA to get, and what are the things to look for. I don't know anything about PDAs really. Basically I just want one that will get the job done, I can run medication and protocol programs on. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks is advance.

A quick suggestion. If you have co-workers that don't mind you trying out thier scopes, or maybe find some diffrent ones at the local hospital. Find one that works for you first and then spend the money. Sometimes if you get a really high grade one, you can hear to much, every little background noise, etc. Personally though I also have the littmann cardiology and it works great.

Awesome thanks.

Theres no need to appoligize, you had your reason for posting it, and thats fine. I watched the video, I know what you were trying to say and yes I agree with you. I think the way the guy videoed this was tasteless though. It was a great job by fire and ems, and thats what i took you meant by posting this. I still disagree with shooting video of ems working on a child inside an ambulance, the patient has the right to privacy as does the ambulance. I don't think it would've been illegal for the cops to take his camera or atleast "remove" him away from the area, as he was warned numerous times to get out of the way. The cops could've done a better job to maintain the scene, but I think they had more important things going on. I myself have photographed at numerous incidents, but you need to use common sense, like i mentioned before it is one thing to video the fire and ems removing the patient from the house, and placing the patient on the strecher and heading to the ambulance, but standing at the back of the ambulance with a camera is tasteless and an invasion of patient privacy.

So if they were pulling your family from a house fire, and they were dead. You wouldn't mind having some guy there video taping it all and then posting it online. I have no problem with people video taping fires, and if it shows a dead family being pulled from a house thats fine, but standing at the back of the ambulance and video taping is wrong. There was no reason for him to be running down the street so he could follow the strecher all the way to the back of the ambulance. Also I'm not whining about what I saw and I did read the warning, I just don't think it was a good video.

While I commend you guys for your efforts, I think this video is tasteless and the cops should've stopped warning that guy and just taken his camera from him. There is no reason to stand at the back of an ambulance and video tape the EMS providers working on someone.

My question is about getting a degree in Paramedicine. I'm currently finisihing up my medic program at a local college. I've seen the ads on this website and then on google and other search engines. My question is has anyone used any of those online program to get a degree or know of any other degree programs out there ? Thanks in advance.

Prayers to you and your family. IF you need anything let us know.

18 still a little above average though.

If you are responding along 95 and theres is heavy traffic, like your going to an accident and the traffic is already backing up, i'd drive in the breakdown lane, just as previously mentioned slow down and be even more careful for people pulling right.

It's not a book that you read to tell you how to treat the patient. Its a guide, used for refrence, great for looking up medications, and just general stuff that you haven't seen in a while.

I second getting a pocketbook with your protocols, that's always a good thing o start with. Also if you are going to get a field guide go with the ALS version. It has more useful info in it, just ignore the skills you can't do, but i've found its just a more informative guide and helpful when working in the field. Just my .02

That's awesome.

That can be a tricky situation. If there is mechanism or signs of injuries, I would definitely treat the patient, you have to do what is best for the patient. As far as the uncle being a "guardian", my understanding would be no, the legal guardian would have to be a parent. In the situation where there is no mechanism or signs of injuries, i would contact a parent by phone to get consent, and have a police officer witness. At minimum if the parents cannot be contact and theres not enough to justify transport, have the uncle sign and someone else witness, preferably a police officer. That's my personal opinions and my understanding of the term guardian.