Richard B the EMT

On relay from the Public Information Officer of the NYSVARA, District 4, Jim Downey: I add my own condolences to both her family, and her FD/EMS families.

Saturday, October 3, 2010, Holiday Inn Turf on Wolf Road Albany, New York New York State Volunteer Ambulance and Rescue Association "Pulse Check" Convention, Educational Conference, and Trade Show Memorial Service for those members of the Association, and members of member squads, who had passed in the last year. Rest In Peace, our brothers and sisters. We have it from here. District One: Nancy Brequist, Pearl River Ambulance, Rockland Paramedics. Dorothy "Jean" Graham, Ramapo VAC. Sidney Weinstein, Spring Hill Community Ambulance Corps. Honorable Thomas P Morahan, New York State Senate. District Four: Jeanie Brienza, Rockaway Point Volunteer Fire Department & Ambulance Corps. Helen Panciner, Jamaica Estates-Holliswood-South Bayside VAC. District Five: Frank E Hemming, Jr., Blooming Grove VAC. Alan J. Borg, Chester VAC. Maxine V. Cucti, Chester VAC. Darren R. Mullady, Chester VAC. Elizabeth McCullough, Cornwall VAC. James W. Sturr, Sr., Florida VAC. Thomas Brush, New Paltz Rescue Squad. Thomas J. Rowe, Pine Bush VAC. Lenore J Dunn, Plattekill FD First Aid Squad. Janice McNeely, Walden VAC. Mary Jane Egan, Walden VAC. Doris E. Ross, Walden VAC. Thomas L. Falk, Town of Highlands VAC. Elizabeth M. Garrison, Town of Highlands VAC. Frank J. Wallace, Town of Highlands VAC. Muriel Rosalie Sutton, Town of Marlboro VAC. Bev Baker, Town of Newburgh VAC. Mary Baker, Town of Newburgh VAC. John "Jack" Rydell, Town of Newburgh VAC. Mark Summers, Town of Newburgh VAC. District Seven: Jennifer Rathjen, Central Islip-Hauppauge Ambulance Company. George Larkin, Holbrook FD/EMS. Sue Bolan, Huntington Community First Aid Squad. Kathy Geary, Huntington Community First Aid Squad. Guy A. Cassara, Lindenhurst VFD-Chemical & Rescue Co. 1. John P. Read, Wantaugh-Levittown VAC. District Twelve: Robert Cacchioli, Elmont VFD/EMS. Ray Harsch, Elmont VFD-Eng. #3. District Fifteen: Robert Clifford Austin, Union Vol. Emergency Squad. John Phillips, North Area VAC. District Eighteen: George Berry, Little Neck-Douglaston VAC. District Ninteen: Richard E. Voorhees, Fulton County Ambulance Service. Edward Wachunas, Mid County VAS. District Ten-Region One: James E. McQuillen, Canton FD Ambulance. John K. Rhone, Fremont VFD Ambulance. Leroy Kemp, L.O.D.D. Tioga Center FD & Emergency Squad. District Twenty-Region Two: Dennis V. Duford, Sr., Ogdensburg Vol. Rescue Squad. James W. Traufler, TIERS VAC. District Thirty-Region Three: Stephanie "Fanny" Longhi, Putnam Valley VAC. John Kelly, Sleepy Hollow VAC. New Jersey State First Aid Council: Helen Toth, Chaplain, NJ State First Aid Council.

As I am not on my home computer right now, and not looking up the specific laws involved, emergency vehicles are allowed to ignore specific vehicle and traffic laws, in specific instances, but always acting with due regard to any and all other vehicular and pedestrian traffic when doing so.

Can anyone confirm or deny if this is just in Canadian areas, or if this is more international in scope?

Here, I'll speak from emotion, and not legal. I do not believe so. There is always the DNR advance directives of elderly, and not so elderly, people, currently in good relative health, who do not want what I have heard described as "heroic efforts" to save them, if they expire. If I understand them correctly, when it's "their time", that is it. Let them go, they are going to "a better place". Tangent, here: Momma B has expressed her desire, when it is "her time", that any body part that can be used in a transplant, be so utilized, as at that point, she won't be actively needing them. In a weekly newspaper column we write, she has mentioned that doing so is her bit attempt at immortality, even if it is only a corneal transplant that will live on. When my father died, his eyes went and helped at least 2 other people, and his skin was used as temporary dressing on a burn patient. Momma B and I are signed up as organ donors, and suggest if you want that bid at immortality, also, that you, also do so.

This time, it's Katie Couric, CBS News, on how nasty political TV ads are:

Which is why Momma B and I went to the Dell this post was sent from. The Dell is 10 years old, and we're looking for it's replacement, which won't be Dell or Mac, per my comp-u-geek's recommendation.

"Wackerdom" be damned. I am still not going to wear the joke T-shirt Lady J got me, that says

In which case, I can only hope that you didn't pay for the unusable program. If you did, if possible, get your money refunded.

While I didn't speak with the pilot at the time, I saw her at a drowning in Riis Park area/Gateway National Recreation Area. I was pleasantly surprised to find that NYPD had any female pilots, and has had her AS a pilot for over a decade. This is the second NYPD Aviation crash that I am aware of. The other was their Messerschmidt (spelling?), which crashed on landing practice sometime between 1989 and 1996 (sorry, unable to locate the news articles from that time). The landing skids splayed out, absorbing most of the energy of the crash, and pilot and observer both suffered back injuries in the previous crash.

For 38 years, I have been of the philosophy, if you start to lose it on a call, stop, take a deep breath, remember you're trying to help this person, then do it. After you get to the hospital, nobody minds if you go the latrine and puke for a while. Been there, done that, and sure I am not alone in having done that.

The "safety pinning the tongue to the lips" concept is from the same book as the tourniquet to the neck for a nosebleed. That book is the "Bad Protocols Joke book" . Not only is it bad protocols, it's bad jokes used to baffle and/or dazzle newbies. Consider that as a "Did he say what I thought he just said?" type line.

If your agency does not supply you with boots, check with them to find out what type(s) footwear they allow you to wear, brand name specific if need be, and where to get it (them). Keep the receipts for taxes, as a "cost of doing business" item, and only if said footwear is exclusively used for the job. Mr Tax Man doesn't take kindly to "job use" items doubling as regular knock around or party dress clothing outside of your agency.

The one common part of "simple syncope", no matter what the cause (stood up too fast, the "bad news" telegram), the best cure is, lay the patient down flat, or with the feet elevated a bit, and they usually come around shortly.

I actually know a few people who became EMTs, because they felt the need for the training to be a kind of medical standby for school sports teams they were associated with. They never served a day on an ambulance. I also probably phrased that badly.

Before the municipal EMS in NYC became FDNY-run, we had a combined graduation of new EMTs, new members of EMS, advancement to Paramedics, and newly minted Lieutenants. We invited then Mayor Ed Koch to the ceremony. Mr. Koch actually said to the graduates and spectators, "Let me be the first to congratulate all of you, on your first steps towards becoming Police and Fire Officers." Huh? These were all people who were EMS career oriented. At the time, contract negotiations were in progress, and one item under discussion was pay parity with NYPD and/or FDNY. After the ceremony, union trustees approached and asked about the parity, and were rebuffed by his statement of "Not while I'm Mayor". When asked the next day about the comment to the graduates, Koch then told the press corps, "I don't understand what all these Ambulance Drivers are so upset about." (Italics mine for emphasis) For the next few days, numerous municipal EMTs and Paramedics put surgical tape over their EMT and Paramedic patches, and wrote on the tape "Ambulance Driver". On a side note, later that year, when Koch later had a heart attack, which he survived, he was not taken to a hospital by ambulance. Instead, he was taken by detectives of his security detail in "unmarked" cop cars, lights and siren.

I visited the Triage Room, at the Duty Determination Clinic at the FDNY a few days ago. The teams in the room now have an automatic BP unit, but claim the thing takes so long to use, they continue with the older manual ones, in order to save time Go figure..

Why not contact Rescuenet directly and ask for assistance? They should know what you'll need to do, to make their system and your mac operating system compatible, as they want your business. Email is probably going to be easier than an LL contact.

There's a Steve Berry panel ("I am NOT an Ambulance Driver" cartoon series), showing a patient with at least a dozen IVs started, caption reading "We didn't need any IVs, but this guy has such good veins..."

The only times I feel like speaking like a pirate is when I occasionally use a small telescope that looks of a style that Captain Jack Sparrow might use, or any seaman character played by Wallace Beery or Errol Flynn. I also feel the need for a decorative eye patch.

As to FD based EMS systems, transport or not, I am on record here, admittedly unsupported by any documentation, that FDs that ASK to do EMS work, are usually more successful, or at least happier, than FDs that are ORDERED by the local political scene, to do EMS work.

While I presume you want gainful employment as an EMT, I hesitantly suggest looking for a Volunteer Ambulance Corps or Volunteer Fire Department, where you can get yourself known, even if unpaid, in the local EMS industry. With that as a background, perhaps AMR or Metrowest might reconsider your application.

An Instructor/Coordinator I have had years ago uses the addition of "NICE to know/NEED to know", background stuff versus what is going to be on the test. I use as example, the "Annie" death mask which is now the CPR mannequin's face (nice to know), versus the 30/2 compression to breath ratio (need to know).

Are you certified and/or licensed as a Medical Doctor (MD), or Doctor of Osteopathy (DO), in the Philippines? As many of your countrymen and women are working in American hospitals, as full doctors, admittedly after taking additional Medical College classes here in the United States, I honestly cannot see someone already with training beyond my own not continuing to get the same level of license/certification as the country they are from, instead of becoming my partner as an EMT on the ambulance. I see it as a waste of talent. There are so many Philippine Doctors and Nurses here in the New York City area, they actually have their own orchestra and chorus association, which I heard a few years ago, performing at the Saint Albans (New York) Veterans Administration Hospital. If they could do it, why don't you become a doctor or nurse here in the US (being a musician is not a core requirement, lol)? By the same concept, I know quite a few US Citizens who are now MDs, who got their first few years of Medical College in a location other than the US, then finished at a Medical School "in the States". They went to schools in Mexico, Granada, at least one from Cambridge, England, and are all excellent doctors.

Condolences to his family, and the AMR-EMS extended families.