brentoli

That is why YOU ASK if lights and siren are needed.

If you, the dispatcher, are unsure the nature of the call, like it IS a cat scratch, the the caller will tell you "No".

How many vehicle collisions have occured responding to BS calls?

What kind of chip do you have on your shoulder? Seriously. Just come clean and tell us.

I am not advocating every call to be an emergency response. But you want me to ask every 911 caller "Do you feel lights and sirens are needed to respond to your emergency?"

Have you ever really dispatched? The sweet 60 year old grandmother will tell you not to get those people in a big hurry for her husband while you can hear the agonal respirations in the background. Hang up from that call, and you will be getting cussed out from Billy's mom because they aren't there fast enough for his sprained wrist.

I am not going to put my opinion out about EMD. I know the program I use, and I know I don't like it. I have heard about others, and do not have any experience to rate them on.

I require three things before I get the tones started for the ambulance. Address, Phone Number, Chief Complaint. I can get the ambulance out the door once I get those. Then I can spend time on information gathering, calming the caller, EMD.... There are alot of call takers that don't see it that way, or their computers won't allow them to. That is a system failure.

In my region, dispatch should not tell you what your priority response is. We dispatch for 9 diffrent ambulance districts. If I tell you the chief complaint, and any additional information I can gather, you as the EDUCATED MEDICAL PROVIDER should be able to make the decision on your own, based on your agencies standing protocols.

I have had 24 hours of medical training through my dispatching position. Don't include my EMT cert in that, and realize that and refresher training is all that many dispatchers will recieve. So why are the paramedics, who have more than 100 times the medical education hours than I, putting call priority in to my hands?

Can you explain what you mean by poisonous gas????

Is this gas gonna knock out the crew in the ambulance? If it is then we need to stop the ambulance and call for a hazmat incident.

I think I can give you a sample of the smell... I had a nice salad for dinner.

Interesting note though along those same lines as to what you are thinking Ruff...

Cyanide release closes Noblesville hospital

Nov 8, 2007 05:29 PM EST

Richard Essex/Eyewitness News

Noblesville - Things returned to normal at Riverview Hospital Saturday night, following a cyanide scare that afternoon. It started with a man's death this morning in Westfield, but during the autopsy of the man's body, things took a dangerous twist.

Channel 13 Eyewitness News

Just watched a news report filmed from the side of I-465 (think of the Indy500 for everyday folk).

The news reporter had her ANSI jacket in bright horrible ugly yellowgreen on. They CARE what they look like every day.

Why is it so hard to get us to use them?

Nice education on how you do it down there.

The Land Cruiser is a transport vehicle? It doesn't look any bigger than a jeep!

I can help with the techniques on bitching just to bitch if you wish!

Shouldn't you be getting back to bed... the sun is coming up soon.

Wait thats vampires, not witches. hehehe

Have you asked?

Of course. I don't bitch just to bitch!

Holy Bump Batman!

I seem to always find only large adult or thigh BP cuffs when I have a 100 lb person.

I am not coming at this with any medical evidence... just a question in theory.

How can you evaluate the injuries that were not sustained by refraining from placing an airway?

I'm almost tempted to move this to the EMS Discussion forum.

Everything on that list is directly relevant to EMS practice.

Oh shut up... you don't belive in cute sayings!

Unless you are trying to follow "Change is difficult but often essential to survival"

The same person who said Life was easy was also the one to tell all the teachers that on the playground it's inappropriate to play tag and have someone be "it" because it might scar them.

Va. School's No-Contact Rule Is a Touchy Subject

My thoughts would be to make the units lighter but that's been said already

How about universal connections - that's been said before

What I would like would be a keyboard style monitor to enter the patient name and etc.

I would also like to see one that can easily be connected to our stretcher - lp12's do not offer good handles for this job.

For the 12 lead how bout electrodes that can be used by most commercially available 12 lead (hospital ones) machines

A recording feature or an easily used set of buttons for when each med or intervention is done. Right now on the LP12 you have to go to options and then hit a button and then scroll thru the choices

Bluetooth/cell capability to fax the 12 lead to the ER

And other stuff

How about a strecher that will accomadate the monitor?

I'm sure admin makes make from other sources such as selling t shirts,books, EMS apparel and whatever else admin has under his sleeves. But thanks for your 2 cents of a post.

He's got to get to 2000 somehow!

I had some classics saved from SOMEDIC and NREMT-Basic for a long time that were just too amusing to part with!

Now mostly it's just PMs with naked pics in them.

I wish I still had some from those d..... nice guys.

I also wish I could have my 979 posts back from brentoli the first... bah.

The problem with ordinary Textmessaging on a cell phone is that especially when using it across different networks the time it might take to recieve a message may vary very strong.

Especially in times when the cellphone networks collapses (etc. new years eve, big disasters) a SMS might take a lot longer than it takes normally.

The emergency plans of some network providers do even stop text messaging when their network is overcrowed.

Technically its possible to get an "priority" service for sending textmessages from or to a certain number but this will only be useful if the sender and the reciever are using both the same network (and the network provider doesn't do any "gateway sharing").

From the moment the message leaves the cellphone network of the sender by using the gateway to another network, the "priority" function won't be working any longer.

Thats why you don't use text messages or alpha-numeric pagers for primary alerting.

Talk to your telecommunications provider, alot of private companies offer good paging deals and who knows, your comms room might just have the feature built into their system already, just sitting there unused

Some CADs do have that ability. We actually have what the OP is asking for. Our counties CAD sends and email to a distribution list, which then sends a text or email to everyone on the departments phone or pager. It is used as secondary alerting. On the average, it takes about 20 seconds from when I enter a unit to a call for the page to be received on my phone. Usually I forget to put my phone on silent, and it starts making obnoxious noises while I am keyed up doing the dispatch.

What if people don't have text messaging?

I don't care. The OP asked for help with SMS services and said pagers were out of the question.

Every phone has an email you can send txt's to. Just set up an email distribution list.

Guess you never worked rural volly. Picture this...it's 2 a.m. and you are a ambu crew. Do you think the PT. cares what you wear to the scene?

Fail.

Don't make assumptions with out knowing your audience.

#1 What would you think in the ER if the nurse came up wearing her best "proud to be a redneck" shirt, holy jeans, and sandals. Then you were met by the doctor in daisy dukes and a wife-beater? Now tell me the pt doesnt care?

#2 Why do you not care about your patients safety? Do you think they really want you to bleed all over them when you slice your arm on a sharp B-post at 2 in the morning?

#3 Why do you not care about your safety? What good is a responder who is injured and needs treatment?

By the way.... I work in a suburban/rural volly service. Thanks.

We are an all volly service. We do not have the luxury of uniforms for the ambulance group. The fire guys have turnout gear, but unless a fully involved fire is being waged, it is at the chiefs discretion. The picture show some turnout gear, yes, but there are prolly many factors of why they were dressed the way they were in that picture.

Because you are an all volly service does that mean there is less chance of you being hurt than at a paid service with full gear?

I was accused of being a cold and sadistic evaluator at a practical session. I failed approximately 50% that came through my station.

I wasn't doing it for the power trip... you are being TESTED this isn't the time for someone to feed you answers.

Just a little off topic, but it amazes me how many students want to be spoonfed every bit of the way.

But..but...but... dad.....

When you save a kids life in a really dramatic "Rescue 911" way you ALWAYS get to be the grand marshal of the 4th of July parade!

What makes one incident ok and the other not? Why will firemen wear full SCBA on overhaul, but not on a natural cover fire? Why will a paramedic wear a whole glove, but cut the index finger tip off?

Example randomly pulled from google images:

SlapChop - You'll love my nuts.

City ponders extra $6.5 million paid for paramedics over basic EMTs

For some, a bee sting can escalate from scary to fatal in matter of minutes.

That's why Columbus paramedics are trained to recognize and treat anaphylactic shock.

But a recommendation that the city compare the costs and quality of advanced life support (what paramedics provide) and basic life support (what firefighters provide) could change everything.

Would be the first major city to have BLS only service.