Richard B the EMT

RIP FDNY EMS Command Paramedic Lieutenant Doug Mulholland, from Colon Cancer, secondary to dust exposure at the World Trade Center collapse on September 11, 2001. Funeral details when I get them. It's the end of your watch, Lieutenant. We've got it from here.

A hypothetical situation, a real agency named: Inwood (Nassau County, NY) VFD/EMS runs with AEMTs (Advanced), who are allowed to start IVs, as allowed by the county. Queens County (a section of NYC) sits a mere 200 feet away. If the IVFD AEMT starts an IV in Queens, they're operating outside of their "Scope of Practice", as Queens, and the rest of NYC don't accept the title of AEMT. They cross the county line, theoretically, they revert to EMT-Bs. Just remember that Local Protocols Rule. Going outside your home county, or state, or nearby international border might give you a better idea of what to do, but where you work determines how and/or what you can do. Still, I presume anyone can ask of their area Department of Health, or whatever they're called locally, to provide the calendar list of upcoming classes, as can EMS training groups. I have to admit my own uncertainty if my old agency accepts Continuing Medical Education credits from other "outside" agencies from the same general area. As an addendum, National Association of EMTs and other EMS related groups hold National and International educational conferences, who's training might or might not be accepted by our local authorities. Even if the training is not accepted, it is always nice exchanging ideas with newfound friends. My instructors at my former agency (I'm retired from active service) looked at my training certifications from a state convention, told me they couldn't use it, but told me to hang on to them, as the situation could change the next day.

While the combo of a new EMT and Paramedic somehow doesn't feel right to me, each combination is a separate and distinct thing. It just might work. Then, again, some long timers being teamed up is gas and a match.

For the last few years, for EMS Week, an FDNY EMS Command Lt. posts a video. Here is this year's rendition. PS, I know a few of the EMTs and the singer personally.

Not knowing anything about the neighborhood, I'd just mention that most VFDs and VACs have been moving away from "air raid" sirens, whistles, and air horn blasts, in favor of pagers and other radio devices, one, because it disturbs the neighbors for miles around, and two, while not particularly enforced that I am aware of, the audio alerting systems are supposed to be tested, by US standards (per what I've been told) 4 times a day. Most agencies test, usually, at noon, which isn't all that bad, and again at midnight (Yes!). Most do the second daily test at 0600, 0900, 1500, 1600, or 1800 hours local time. Then, there's always the story of the house watch fire fighter at a fire house, who's supposed to blast the siren at noon, but his watch stopped. He called up the telephone operator to get the time, but the operator tells him he can set his watch when the siren on the fire house gives the noon blast. Hey! I started page 76.

Just remember, we are all nobodies until we're needed. Kipling possibly said it best: BTW, welcome back!

A 1950s movie had the premise that at some point of gestation, a human fetus looks kind of like some kind of lizard. When due to radiation exposure a man reverts back to looking like a lizard... Obviously, this was a horror movie, but the title escapes me. Anybody?

Just thinking, after reading an unrelated string...Whatever happened to CrotchetyMedic? (Spelling guessed at)

"Be vewwy, vewwy quiet. We're hunting Elmers!"

Arctickat, are you publicizing a company in existence for 30 years, or your being a member of said company for 30 years? Or are you just publicizing being "in the game" for 30 years? Gotta mention, I've been in the game from the fall of 1973, overlapping volunteer ambulance of 23 years through 5 different private ITF ambulance services, then 25 years in municipal service, ending 10-06-2011. I'm still an EMT, at least through spring 2015. ...and captain my captain tohellwithitall: fame is fleeting. Who's going to take the start of page 75, or page 100?

While I am not one, there are also a number of Physicians Assistants here, too. Welcome aboard!

2 more, then somebody gets page 74's start.

My Volunteer Ambulance Corps had, for a short while, a blind dispatcher. He'd print out in braille, and on the crew's return, we'd transcribe. He decided it wasn't working out and left. Our canine mascot didn't like his service dog, as the dog was in the mascot's territory, and that service animal kept passing wind!

While I have no idea, perhaps it is because everyone should have a hobby.

If, in addition to the Mac & cheese at 0730 hours, you want pickles in strawberry ice cream, best get checked out for pregnancy.

Can someone provide data for cumulative hearing damage?

My nephew just reminded me that Mayonnaise was originally made in England, and was sending 100 tons of the stuff to Mexico, where apparently they love it. Unfortunately, the shipment was supposed to be the second stop for the ship, which never completed the voyage. when the ship, "RMS Titanic", which I think youze guyz might have heard of, collided with the iceberg and sank, taking the cargo down to the bottom of the Atlantic. This so disheartened the Mexican government so much, they created a national day of mourning, observed to this day. What? You never heard of "Sink-o De Mayo"?

My nephew just reminded me that Mayonnaise was originally made in England, and was sending 100 tons of the stuff to Mexico, where apparently they love it. Unfortunately, the shipment was supposed to be the second stop for the ship, which never completed the voyage. when the ship, "RMS Titanic", which I think youze guyz might have heard of, collided with the iceberg and sank, taking the cargo down to the bottom of the Atlantic. This so disheartened the Mexican government so much, they created a national day of mourning, observed to this day. What? You never heard of "Sink-o De Mayo"?

All I can tell you is, yes, between 1980 and 1985, while standing on the door frame "running board", to check the light bar, my partner chose just that moment to check the siren on "Yelp" setting. PAIN! Big time in my ears! Plus back pain, as I fell out of the doorway. Pity I was unable to claim Workers Comp.

I didn't ride in a 1967 Pontiac ambulance until 1976, Holmes Ambulance/Ambulette Service, Brooklyn, NY, maybe a month before someone crashed it (day shift, I was overnight.)

Actually, I have to use the "I don't know". Speaking for myself, I've never been close to an explosion as it's going off. I briefly left a scene when a cop pulled his sidearm and fired, but returned 2 minutes later after a bunch of other cops arrived (pit bull attacked the cop, who shot in self defense, didn't see the dog until later. No human patients, as it turned out). Within the last 5 years, a coastal California FD got a bunch of bad press when, due to their admitted lack of specialty training, they allowed a suicide to swim away from them and drown. I understand they now have gotten "surf rescue" training.

Hope your daughter feels better ASAP! Just remember the old jokes about tests, 1) On multiple choice questions, when in doubt, go with answer "c", and 2) If you fail the test, the results envelope will beat you home, pass, the results envelope will take forever!

I admit I had to look up the previous names. We've conversed under all of them, as it turns out. As with the rest of the well wishers, CONGRATS!!

ParamedicMike: There is always the possibility of selling the old uniforms to some movie studio, especially if the agency you got them from has changed the uniform. Case in point, I have seen numerous TV shows and movies, set in NYC between 1980 and 1996, with actors playing EMS personnel, in correct EMS "Green and Whites".

My memory may be off a bit, but the first use of a "secondary device" may have been at a birth control clinic bombing, somewhere in the southern US, back during the late 1970s. It went off in a dumpster, roughly 50 feet from an on-scene television news reporter, who was doing a live coverage of the bombing. I note that the 9-11 terrorists planned the second plane into the World Trade Center, knowing that the news media would be on the scene covering the first plane. Nobody, including the terrorists who planned the attack in the first place, or any of the PAPD, NYPD, other LEO agencies, FDNY, FDNY EMS, their supervisory personnel, and all agencies that had arrived on the scene, thought the "Twin Towers" would collapse. Back in the day, NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation EMS had written plans for specific event locations, for example, Yankee Stadium, as to where, by pre-planning, the staging, triage, transport, and other "sectors" would be established. After the EMS/FDNY "merger", this was tossed. With the possibility of explosions being followed by "secondary devices", IMHO, this is, perhaps, a good thing.