pacman

I wholefully concur.

Thank you for posting this link. I was unaware that a report was released regarding the incident. Aside of working municipal EMS, I also volunteer at a collegiate EMS squad. Immediately after the incident, we had a meeting regarding our prepareness for such as event. We were also given the opportunity to vent. Unfortunately, one of our members lost a friend during the incident. I will be fowarding the report to my fellow members, advisors, and the security personnel as well. We have much to learn from it. Besides communications problems with local agencies, it seems the the Virginia Tech Rescue Squad did a fantastic job! Their efforts should definitely be commended. =D>

Walmart may be paying more... :roll: Seriously, find out what you may have had wrong and study again. You'll be fine, don't give up.

I'm not going to turn this thread into a race discussion but I personally met several Philipino's who happen to be great nurses. Of course, there are bad and good members of all race, background, religions, ect. Maybe the ones you were referring to weren't even healthcare providers. Who knows. My gripe on nursing homes: The other night, dispatched to a diabetic emergency at a nursing home, glucose level of 46. My BLS crew shows up first. Luckily, the guy had oxygen at 15 LPM via nonrebreather. However his airway was compromised with mucus and saliva and he was drowning in his own fluids. I suction it up and tried to get a response from the patient to see if I can give him some glucose orally. Patient wasn't even responding to pain stimuli, OPA goes in, I can't do anything with the sugar tube. ALS arrives and asks me, so where's the nurse? I look at him and sacastically say " I don't know, you would think one would be around at a nursing home....maybe shift change is at 3 am?" We both roll our eyes, one of the LPNs comes in with a handful of paperwork and the medic asks her if the nursing home had glucagon because that would have prevented us from even being there. She just looks at us dumbfounded and says " I'll get the nurse!" Nurse never came.... After some miracle sugar water via IV, the patient comes back to life and feels like he can go back to Normandy and kick some behind. We tell him he should go to the hospital so he can escape this mess. He agreed. Leave the hospital and get called to another nursing home for an elderly male with difficulty breathing. I show up to find the guy didn't even have oxygen on him. Great..... :roll: I would never sent someone I care about to a nursing home. Its evil!

In all seriousness.... "Suburban EMS to XYZ Hospital" "Go Ahead Suburban EMS" "I am coming in with a 53 year old male with trauma to the scrotum. Injury appears to be a 2 inch tear with exposed tissue. Bleeding is extensive but is being controlled by trauma dressing. BP is 146/70, pulse 100, respirations 26 a minute, SpO2 is 94% on room air, and patient denies any pernient medical history. Our ETA is 10 mins. Any questions?" "You're coming in with what?!" *chuckles in the background* " *clears throat* I repeat, I'm coming in with a 53 year old male with an injury to the scrotum, the balls, the nuts, the sack. Extensive bleeding barely being controlled by trauma dressing. The patient is screaming like a girl, airway is good. I'm coming in without ALS, PD is following my truck. I'll be there in 7 mins. Call everyone, get the camera ready." "XYZ Hospital received....we'll be awaiting your arrival!!"

There is so much more to it that meets the eye.... Lawyers charge their fees with accordance to the reputation they and their law firms have in winning cases. A lawyer's quality and experience could mean the difference between going to jail for life or freedom ( isn't this, in essence, saving a life?). They can also be the turning point for big money cases. Lawyers typically go through six years of competitive schooling. They usually obtain a Bachelor's degree first while maintaining a good grade point average, take the LSATs ( the entrance exam to law school), and apply for very competitive positions into law schools. Their education costs could also sum up to hundred of thousands of dollars. Lawyers are also master researchers and are expected to know endless case rulings in order to serve their clients. The discovery process could also take months, if not years to get completed. I know all this because I use to work with lawyers. You don't even need a high school diploma to become an EMT-B. I know this because I've seen it. Anybody, and I mean ANYBODY, can become an EMT-B with minimal studying. I've seen 16 year olds riding on ambulances who don't even know the basics of algebra. Personally, I took my course in about 7 weeks and then took the test and passed it. Boom, I'm an EMT-B and can "save lives".....or at least thats what I thought. ALS, for some areas is not much different. You can become a paramedic without even obtaining an Associate's degree. This baffles me! We have individuals pushing drugs without even having some sort of post-secondary diploma. Granted, their training enables them to perform truly life saving techniques which results in them to make more money than unskilled labor jobs. Remember, other people in the workforce don't make as much. EMS is a flooded market with a high turnover rate. Its in desperate need for educated individuals with a PROFESSIONAL attitude. However, as long as entrance requirements are minimal for entering EMS, we will always be the victims of supply and demand. Too many EMTs who all want to volunteer, forcing the paid guys to get three separate jobs just to get by. Careerwise, until things change, EMS is a dead end career for most. I love my job, I really do. I just don't see myself paying a mortgage, supporting my family, and helping my kids out through college with it. Eventually, I'll have to hang up my boots too.....

I came across this article. What are your limits in assessing with painful stimuli? http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2007/08/f...ted_for_pu.html Frenchtown man indicted for punching rescue worker by Ralph R. Ortega Wednesday August 22, 2007, 2:43 PM A Frenchtown man who allegedly punched a volunteer rescuer in the face after she allegedly slappped him in an effort to revive him has been indicted on aggravated assault charges. An indictment handed up in Hunterdon County on Tuesday and released today charges Warren Wiseburn, 58, with one count of second-degree aggravated assault, a crime punishable by up to 10 years in jail. The charges stem from an April 21 encounter between Wiseburn and Patty Moran Atheras, captain of Frenchtown's Emergency Medical Service squad. After the incident, police charged Wiseburn with assault, and he in turn has filed a citizen's complaint of simple assault against Atheras. Atheras - who claimed she sustained a concussion, lost the hearing in her right ear and suffered damaged vision in her right eye as a result of the incident - said the indictment provided her some level of comfort. "In a small way I feel vindicated," said Atheras, who said her EMT license was revoked after the confrontation, which began when authorities and rescue workers were summoned to a retirement house where Wiseburn lives after he was found "unresponsive," according to police. Atheras, who was among the volunteer EMS responders, "started to try to get some kind of response from (Wiseburn) during which time she was smacking (Wiseburn) in the face," Frenchtown Police Chief Al Kurylka said at the time. Wiseburn then came to, according to the chief, "and punched her in the face." Yay for my 50th post! lol

Really? Worse than New York and New Jersey? I find it hard to believe. You really do need an SUV to survive some of the roads here. Of course, I've never been to Louisiana, so what do I know right? Oh, by the way, no drinking and driving for me! Last thing I need is a DUI charge on my permanent record or a few innocent dead people on my mind forever.....

It sounds like you sustained fairly serious injuries there. You're 19 years old and are way too young to further damage your back. Consult with your doctor and your physical therapist and see what they have to say. EMS is a physically demanding job that can take a toll on a healthy back so just imagine an injured one. Think about lifting people down a flight a stairs on stairchairs, transferring 200 + pound patients onto hospital beds, performing CPR for what seems like an endless amount of time, or simply bending over to get an assesment from a child. Its rough out there! Make sure you get the full benefits from the insurance company so you can get back to the way you were before. I can understand the urge to go out there in the field. We've all been there. However, make sure you're healthy enough to stay in the field for a long time by preserving your back.

I'll keep him in my thoughts and hope for a speedy and full recovery.

I can be a pretty liberal guy and all, but that video was just repugnantly offensive. :x I don't care what religion it would have been about, it served no purpose. You just turned this fairly educational and professional discussion into an example of what's a closed minded, disrespectful moron. I too motion the removal of such post, but not the thread since I believe more enlighting opinions can be added to it.

I'm afraid of letting my patient immediately read my PCR because I fear that he/she might damage or destroy it. In one instance, I had a drunk patient screaming obscenities and being physically uncooperative. After I got the nurse's signature, the patient demanded to see my report. I knew I wrote things that he wouldn't be too happy about ( nothing personal) so I told him that he could request a copy of my report through the appropiate venues as soon as he sobers up. I then promptly left so I could go back to sleep. :x

That was too funny! I remember one time, when I was interviewing for a job, the interviewer asked for a copy of my social security card, however she immediately said " Its not because I think you're an illegal or anything!" Being hispanic does not mean I'm an illegal alien. I'm a U.S. born citizen, thank you. Being hispanic does not mean I'm automatically Mexican. I'm of Ecuadorian decent. I actually do speak and write Spanish, but I bet I know more English than most Americans. However, I smiled and shrugged it off because ironically, the interviewer was also hispanic....

Ouch!!! Could have been worse, he could have died from an MI while waiting 30 mins for an ambulance to call "in service".

I volunteer at my school's first aid squad. The call volume isn't big at all and I'm on campus when I'm on call. My closest friends are on the squad and I gain respect from my peers and the school administration ( always a plus). However, I also work a municipal 911 squad as a paid EMT. I make $12 and I'm allowed to work up to 24 hours a week ( I usually do a straight 24 shift to get it out of the way). I get much more exposure doing it and finally have a part time job that I love. I'm still in the works of trying to get a a second part time 911 gig. Minimum wage in New Jersey is now $7.15 an hour. The money is great for a college kid trying to pay some bills, gas, and tuition. It sure beats working customer service for anywhere between $8-11 an hour. I had a job once as a telemarketer for $15 and hour, but I HATED it. EMS is the perfect job for me at this moment. I could work once or twice a week allowing me to go to school, and it offers the excitement and experience I want. Not to mention, its the only job where not only am I allowed to sleep, but actually encouraged to sleep. "Its 2 am son, you should get some sleep". Wow... I'll be honest though, there are moments when I can't stand it. It is physical labor, sometimes the dealings with people are not so sweet, and it is dangerous. It wouldn't be bad volunteering if I had a decent paying job during the day. However, I don't know if I would do it as my primary job for minimum wage. $7.15 x 40 hours = $286 a week. OUCH :shock: . ( I make that much now, but only work 24 hours) How do people even get through rent on that? You could work at Walmart in an air conditioned store and make more.

As we all know, if we get into a motor vehicle crash while in the ambulance, we are automatically at fault because we had to drive with "due regard". I'll then have to automatically take a urine test. I don't need any alcohol in my system to make me look criminal. One of the places I ride at has a 24 hour alcohol consumption rule. You are not to drink any alcohol within 24 hours before a shift. I follow that rule strictly and make sure I find coverage if I have a social event ( like my brother's recent wedding). I wouldn't want to smell beer on my EMT, fire fighter, or police officer just like you wouldn't want to smell tequila on your doctor before a surgery.

On man, that was too funny! :joker:

I understand that this may not be a big deal because other states have been doing it for years! However, I am happy its finally happening, a small step at time. Dust, what do you mean no ALS in New Jersey? Are you referring to New Jersey not having ALS ambulances that transport patients or are you referring to ALS only being operated by hospitals as opposed to municipalities?

This is shocking! Way to go! Hopefully this will be the start of a trend in New Jersey.

Yay for Hudson County!!! Finally, something to be proud of! Interesting vehicle North Bergen has there..... 8)

In New Jersey, volunteers are legally allowed to have at most TWO blue lights in their personal vehicles to repond to emergency medical calls. I know that many people seem to think that two means ten. Here is the pdf form regarding this issue. However, no volunteer member may have a siren in their personal vehicle unless they are a chief or anything of similar command. Even then, this individual would be allowed to use a red light. I never heard of the DOT issuings special plaques to illegally park at emergency scenes. However, if these plaques are in fact abused, then local law enforcement has every right to ticket and/or tow the vehicle.

Hey Dust, would that be a BLS or an ALS skill? lol :twisted: I use those cheap notepads that I keep in my back pocket. Otherwise I write on the glove. There have been times when I have written on my bare forearm. I never thought of using medical tape.....this is an epiphany to me! :cheers:

There is a difference between being cancelled by PD and cancelling yourself because you think the call is b.s. I would never cancel myself! In the case I stated, the person was arrested and was under the custody of the police officer. If anything happened on his watch, he was responsible. There have been situations where I've been toned out for motor vehicle collisions with minor injuries, and we would sometimes be cancelled prior to arrival by PD. PD then has to get an RMA ( refusal of medial attention) from the injured person. I know that police filling out RMA's isn't the case in most places. I acknowledge that I'm lucky. This is an interesting topic and obviously not one that the original thread intended. Has EMS unit cancellations been discussed elsewhere? Another possible scenario, a BLS unit cancels ALS prior to ALS's patient contact. Is the ALS unit responsible for the patient's outcome if they were cancelled by BLS as they were arriving at the driveway? Wouldn't it be the same as the PD situation ( where PD usually has first responder training and BLS has higher medical training) ?

If I read this correctly, you're saying that the police officer on scene cancelled the responding EMS unit prior to patient contact. I don't see anything legally wrong with that. If anything serious goes down, it all falls on the police officer for cancelling. Am I agreeing with you? I can't tell your stance on the issue from this post. The very same thing happened to me a few weeks ago. I got toned out in the middle of the night for an unresponsive male in the parking lot of a mall. My BLS unit and my supervisor responded and we were cancelled via radio by PD as we were pulling in to the parking lot. It turns out the guy was drunk and was being arrested for driving while intoxicated and trespassing. Since we responded from across town and were already there, we decided to at least talk to PD on scene. The officer came up to us as soon as we stepped out of the truck and said he was the one that cancelled us because the guy was drunk and was under arrest. However, he jokingly suggested that we could have the pleasure :roll: of assessing him if we wanted to. He also said he was going to take him to a local hospital ( where most of the drunks and psychiatric patients go). I never saw the patient so I got on the radio: "EMS 1 to Dispatch:..... We are cancelled by PD on scene prior to patient contact. We'll be available and returning to quarters" "Dispatch to EMS 1:.... Received" I didn't see anything wrong with that. What do you guys think? Please enlighten me if my crew was wrong.

I just came across this article. I really don't know what to make of it since I don't know much about their organization. Jewish ambulance workers seek relief Wednesday, July 18, 2007 By MEREDITH MANDELL HERALD NEWS PASSAIC -- The director of a Jewish ambulance service said that city police need sensitivity training and a better understanding of what the organization does after a clash with police who attempted to tow an ambulance this week. David Kaplan, 25, of Passaic, who founded the local branch of Hatzolah, an international ambulance corps staffed by volunteers in many orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, confronted police Sunday who had ticketed an ambulance parked the wrong way on Reid Avenue, around the corner from Hatzolah headquarters at 243 Van Houten Ave. A group of people congregated in front of the ambulance at about 11 a.m. as five police cars and a tow truck arrived at the scene, Kaplan said. The tow truck operator was unable to tow the ambulance because of its size, he said. "It's unheard of to tow an ambulance in any city," Kaplan said Tuesday. "It sort of leads us to believe there's selective enforcement going on." Calls to police Chief Daniel Paton and Deputy Chief Matthew La Paz were not returned Tuesday. Spokesman Detective Andrew White said they had left the office and that he would not supply a copy of the police report. "There was a traffic violation and a summons was issued. That's all I can comment on," White said. Mayor Samuel Rivera said he was on the scene Sunday and thought the ambulance volunteers acted "belligerently" and that perhaps police responded too harshly. "They were to going to be towed because they were parked in a dangerous position," Rivera said. Rivera said he met Monday with Kaplan and Paton to try to resolve friction between police and the volunteers. "I'm trying to work with them. My goal is for them to work with our (the city's) EMS," Rivera said, adding that part of the frustration with Hatzolah goes back more than two years. In 2004, the city tried to shut down the ambulance service because it did not comply with a city ordinance requiring certification by the police director. The state, however, does not require certification of volunteer emergency medical service squads. A proposal to amend the city ordinance requiring certification was passed Tuesday night. In addition, the city has offered Hatzolah to use city EMS headquarters to park Hatzolah's ambulances but Hatzolah has rejected the city's offer, Rivera said. "They say they like to have ambulances parked closer to the Jewish Community," Rivera said. Kaplan said that since his Hatzolah Emergency Medical Services of North Jersey began operating in 2003, he has had no problem with the police and that generally, the 30 volunteers have had a good relationship with city officials. But then last fall, he said, police began ticketing Hatzolah's three ambulances, with roughly 14 tickets received for improper parking in the fall. Ticketing stopped, Kaplan said, but started again recently, with seven or eight tickets issued in the past two weeks, he said. The matters have yet to be resolved in court, and Hatzolah hopes the city might waive the penalties if a solution can be reached. The incident is the latest in the city's parking saga involving the 3rd Ward, where many Orthodox Jews live. An outcry has erupted among residents over the enforcement of alternate-side parking regulations in Third Ward Memorial Park, where traffic cops didn't previously ticket or tow vehicles. Hundreds of residents submitted a petition against towing to the City Council during a meeting earlier this month. Kaplan said that volunteers keep the ambulances close to their homes to save the time it takes to get to a call, rotating stewardship of the ambulances among them. Kaplan said the city should take into consideration the services Hatzolah provides to the community. Since the Passaic Beth Israel/St. Mary's Hospital merger in Passaic, the demand for Hatzolah's service has grown, he said. With overcrowding at the hospital, many patients request transportation to other hospitals further away. Hatzolah supplements the city's taxed EMT services and can provide transportation to places where the city's EMTs do not transport people, he said. Kaplan believes that police officers and city officials have misconceptions about Hatzolah, which led to the clash. He wants to dispel the notion that Hatzolah provides services only to the Jewish community. "We don't discriminate whatsoever, we take anyone," he said. Reach Meredith Mandell at (973) 569-7100 or mandell@northjersey.com.