shadowfane

1977. Northern NY, Potsdam Vol Rescue Squad required you to have or GET an AFA card upon becoming a member, and they required at least one EMT (basic) on every run..... We had 2 high top modular vans, a converted bread van for a crash truck, and a Clark Cortez as our MVA response vehicle. We got one of the first Braun Modulars in 79, andour Mechanical Assistant Chief taught Braun how to instal a generator in their rigs (Ray went down and helped them instal it in the build-out process).... Came to Cleveland in 79-80, less than 10 years after Dan McNutt pioneered the Third Service COncept in EMS here in Cleveland with Cleveland EMS, and Paramedics. Dan started with 120 Welfare Kids (ok 18-21 yrs old) and had them trained by Margo Kiralyi, RN. MY paramedic class was the last one Dan supervised at Cuyahoga Community College and the last one Bruce Shade taught there (yes, he had just finished the Mosby text we used.....that year). Margo was our instructor that year also..... My bride and I have seen traction splints from Thomas Half ring, through Striker (a clam shell affair I really think hasn't been improved on yet, but which has gone into the dustbin of history), through Hare and all of the current crop. the equipment has changed on a yearly basis since the first triangular bandage, but the skills remain remarkably stable.... Airway Maintenance... ok the adjuncts have changed, and the LMA looks like some bizare instrument...right a whole other diatribe.... Bleeding Control...not a lot of change from basic direct pressure etc... Resuscitation....here things ARE changing, from lots of fluids to less fluids, from NS to hypertonic fluids, and permissive hypotensive resuscitation, with LOTS of studies in process...but you STILL have to hit either a vein or an IO....in the civilized world. If yer in an austere or Primitive environment, well there is always proctoclysis...... shadowfane

8, you got a snicker here..... Michael you might have pointed out that you were quoting a guy who was about as solid a physician as any of his contemporaries.... Paragod is (not a definition, more a description) the EMT-P who hip checks the responder on the scene to remove him or her form the victim and begins an assessment that disregards/ignores the report said responder is trying to give... heh.. BTDT, had the flight surgeon of one of the Aeromedical Services hereabouts point out to said paragod that he MIGHT want to have listened to the guy he shoved out of the way (literally, in the doc's presence) since he really WAS an EMT-P, even though he was working under FR (ARC to boot) protocols..... Paragod has shown the level of respect that the doc wanted him to show to almost EVERYONE he comes in contact with after the incident I described. He some how lost his GodHood that afternoon.....I think it was the appology he made (with the Doc in the background, just standing there watching the race cars....)... Same doc a year later stuffed someone into our First Aid Tent and said "Hydrate this guy and call me if you need me" as he went elsewhere on the grounds.....said doc later that day took his helo and went and played ATC at one of the largest MCI's in the region in the last 10 years.... shadowfane, who IS a -P, and who has, in the last 12 months worked under FR, EMT-B, -I, and -P protocols.....the joys of Volunteering, with a Medical Response Corps, among other roles...

JUST for the record, EMS doesn't ALWAYS mean running around in a tricked out vehicle with a bed in the back and between $150,000 and $300,000 worth of sexy and neat tech life saving gear in it. You could be like me and end up at 10,500 ft in Pakistan treating SLS and sore backs for porters. I spent just under a month on an expedition last summer (ran out of O's at 10,500 and had to come home since I wasn't addapting as well as I needed to. NEXT time we'll use Diamox but that's a whole 'nother diatribe.) Oh and for the rest of the record, wife and I got our Basic in '78 as part of a Vollie Squad (it's all that there are in that part of NY), moved to the big city and worked a LOT of other jobs while volunteering with the oldest continuous first aid corps in the country. We decided to get our Medic certs in '91 when a friend of ours was about to retire from running the Medic Program at the local Community College and the bride was working as a Basic/Dispatcher for one of hte larger local Privates. I picked up the cert and got phased out of a job at about the same time, and so I went to work for a series of Private Ambulance Companies and then a hospital or two. I turn 55 next week so hell no you aren't too old. shadowfane Oh yeah. I do it 'cause I love it. That and that adrenaline is my fav rec.chem of choice..... "Hi, I'm Shadowfane. My recreational chem of choice is adrenaline..."