Watch NZ's HEMS medics in action

[Kiwiology]

More action from down under; New Zealand's Advanced Paramedics take to the skies with Auckland baswd Westpac Resuce (HEMS).

Unlike the rest of the country (which uses a roster of regular road medics) the Auckland service employs its own Advanced Paramedics (EMT-Ps).

We're a bit quirky in the way we do things down here; so just a recap. Most of these jobs are way out in the whop whops where the road crews seen here are "Primary Care" officers who are "pre-BLS" studying toward the BLS qualification and are trained to what the US call "first responder" (40 hours) - basically O2/AED. You also see some weird looking vanbulances

Yoiu'll also see some "ambulance officers" which are BLS and "paramedics" which are ILS. One job uses what is called PRIME (Primary Resource in Medical Emergencies) which are ALS trained local doctors and RNs used in areas where ALS is more than 30 minutes away if the patient is critical (this program has been met with some mixed results here and outside it, doctors haven't been used on calls since about the early eighties).

More as I get them.

If you want to see our road ALS in action, watch these videos (links are spread thoroughout the post)

Episode One

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Edited May 2, 2009 by kiwimedic

[AnthonyM83]

Apparently I don't have the right windows media player "codec".

Said error while it tried to automatically d/l it, then just played the sound, no video.

[Kiwiology]

Try the AVI Codec Pack http://www.avicodecpack.com/