Civilians to EMS, transition of care responsibilities...

[mysticlakecasinoemt]

ALS let the "nurse" stay just on hearsay, without evidence of certification of anything.

DOOM ON THEM!! THEY SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER!! Also, you make no mention as to whether the 'nurse' continued to interfere with the EMS admin of the appropriate care?!?!?

I wasn't there directly. I was stuck with an assets escort and couldn't leave

the money. I was eighty feet away and out of sight. I got all of this through the

account of my partner and discussion with security management. The "debate"

ended when the paramedic taking over said the "nurse" could stay. Then it

was all load and go.

[Ace844]

[kevkei]

First of, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's a duck. Sounds more like they were a wolf in sheeps clothing. I've found that a few properly dropped medical terms get their spidey senses tingling if I want to play the 'I'm a Paramedic card' while off duty (which, is few and VERY far between).

Secondly, if you can't verify your credentials and licensure, GET THE HELL OFF MY SCENE. And even then, GET THE HELL OFF MY SCENE. It's called common courtesy and professional limitations.

Thirdly, know your place, of which, this is not theirs.

[mysticlakecasinoemt]

I wasn't there directly. I was stuck with an assets escort and couldn't leave the money. I was eighty feet away and out of sight. I got all of this through the

account of my partner and discussion with security management. The "debate"

ended when the paramedic taking over said the "nurse" could stay. Then it

was all load and go.

Change of Heart.

Remember that cardiac arrest call from four days ago? Where

I was stuck eighty feet away and the other EMT was stuck on a door

post 250 yards away so that his arrival to the guest's side was delayed?

It was only the fact that other guests started this lady's CPR that made

her recovery good enough for recapture with the defibrillator. Otherwise,

she would have been pulseless and unoxygenated for over two and a

half minutes, enough to cause some adverse cardiac chemical changes,

like acidosis.

Just learned that she is home and is fine.

Management got away with having all the floor EMTs tied up. Then.

That is, until this morning.

I was at a door post, and the second officer EMT was on his way to

the ninth floor of the hotel to break another officer, when we heard

this panicky call from the bus entrance guard about a guest down,

having a seizure.

I offered my position at the main doors hinting my close position to

others again, like I did for that arrested lady, for someone to relieve

me. It seemed like only I knew that the second EMT was far, far away

in the hotel on an upper floor with an ETA of over 2 minutes to the call

site.

Next thing I knew, I hear a mobile officer, who ran into the building, in the

midst of a struggle, begging MD Fire to hurry and step it up a little. His frantic

call was utterly terrifying and you could hear the guest choking over the radio

through a compromised airway of blood or vomit. This officer was on the main

channel where the fire station couldn't hear him, only the rest of us. He begged

twice, his words broken. I went over the line and said, "Steve, see if you can

tip his head back if you can..."

Then I hear the supervisor EMT down in dispatch chastising the officer for yelling

in panic and demanding that he call dispatch asap and explain himself.

Then the main channel fumbled physical violence and went quiet and all I could

see was the firehouse sending two trucks with lights on full to that entrance. I

guess the officer was trying to head and neck restrain the guy to protect him or

to try and get him breathing or something.

I felt so helpless. It took all I had to stay at my post at the door. I absolutely hate

myself for standing by and not leaving to help the choking man I knew was right

around the corner two hundred feet away. I had to stay at the front entrance or it

would have meant my job or at least a severe disciplinary action.

I don't know how that man turned out. This guest was the second one in four days

whose welfare was directly jeopardized by the officer EMTs being unavailable to

respond due to one reason or another.

I considered quitting my job. Right there at the end of the shift. But for some

reason, I didn't.

I wanted to email everybody with why EMT officers are being tied up on side duties

and not being allowed to be free to answer calls as we're trained to do. But I didn't

do that either, knowing that it was shock and horror ruling me and not any clear thinking.

Part of the reason for this is because we are so short officers; that everybody's

needed in order to cover all the critical side work of moving and watching casino

money. Part of the reason also, is that even when a supervisor EMT is free, they're

usually off the main casino floor on the office level and frequently at a distance

from any med call that may come.

I finally decided to just get the hell out of there before I broke down crying in

shame.

I punched out fifteen minutes early and just got home as fast as I could.

I slept a few hours but then I got up, because my heart was pounding. I decided

to call the fire station and talk to Kai, the EMT director over there. I told him that I

was going out on a limb by calling him for not obeying the company's idea of the

chain of command. And then I told him everything I just told you now.

I said, "Kai, you should have heard that regular officer beg MD Fire to go faster

on the main channel, it was probably a blocked airway.." I told him. "And that

was before the first EMT got there from the 9th floor of the hotel."

Kai said, "I thought that he sounded a little out of breath over the radio. Are they

not scheduling EMTs for the floor again?"

I told him I didn't know who was doing it but that I honestly felt that guests and

team members' welfares were being jeopardized by what was happening.

Kai said, "They know we can send a fire guy over there to cover first aid needs.

All right, I'll get in a little investigating, ok. Don't worry about calling like this.

Medical issues are my department, ok? I won't tell them it was you who brought

it up."

I also told Kai that this may be one reason why other officers on all the shifts

were leaving the EMT program, because they weren't being allowed to take

calls and had to standby while supervisor EMTs tried to answer them from the

lower levels, a much longer time delay.

A living hell to regular officers and especially if you're an EMT whose every

instinct it is to respond. Sheer man-made hell. Like the situation that I had to

live through, and that other officer did, this morning.

I thanked Kai and hung up and since then, I've tried to sleep again, but I ..can't.

I keep crying. I can't believe I didn't go help that man despite company rules.

I'm horrified at what happened and I'm even more horrified at myself and I still

can't think straight.

A life comes first! Why didn't I go? Was I so afraid of what the casino would do

to me if I defied the policies? I'm afraid that my answer to that is yes.

That mobile driver who came in to help that man will get a three day suspension

or possibly even losing his mobile position back to a regular officer because

he abandoned the truck.

Policy states this. You are an officer first, then an EMT. You cannot abandon

a door post or money escort of any kind for a medical call. Even if you are with

a minor injury, you cannot respond to a worse call even if one should happen

near you. The next EMT will handle that one.

I defied policy only once. When I helped a non-breathing old lady doing a

backbend over a slot machine chair after she starting having a heart attack. I

went to her with a chips case in hand and I did everything I could to protect those

assets while I helped her get level with an open airway and to hold her so she

wouldn't fall.

It was ruled that I did all I could to protect that money, with a camera's coverage,

with a different department's supervisor's foot on the case, with two other guards.

But I lived an absolute hell waiting for what would be done to me for two weeks.

And I'm afraid that deep down, today, that I probably decided that I didn't want to

live through that again.

But now... Just who am I?

I want to leave my job if this stupid Ca Ca doesn't get fixed.

People are more important than money.

Why can't my bosses see that?

I'm going to disappear to work at a convention in Bloomington for two days,

to try and forget all of this until I come back Sunday. Maybe Kai will have set

the security supes straight by then.

But who knows whether or not surveillance caught my reactions at the front

door. I was mad, horrified and I'm sure, not acting normally on their monitors.

They may put two and two together that I called the firehouse about this.

I don't want to have to explain myself to my bosses. They're wrong and I

know I'm right. Sometimes I feel that just a few others and myself actually care

about all this EMT stuff. I hurt so bad now because I open myself to care. I

just... care. It's me. It's who I am. Doesn't that mean anything?

So , come Monday morning, I'm going to go check out what the Mall of America

has to offer me if I became one of their guard/EMTs. It might mean taking a

pay cut. I don't care.

If the casino still holds onto money first and guests last, during

the next few weeks, I'm more than gone.

And you know what? I don't feel so bad for letting go a little loyalty.

The reason why I thought I was an EMT for the casino just died this morning

along with any shred of decency I thought they all had for the guests and

employees there.

Read about this whole sorry job and how I lived/live it, here.

Patti's Blog- Life of a Casino EMT

Patti

[mysticlakecasinoemt]

Read about this whole sorry job and how I lived/live it, here.

Patti's Blog- Life of a Casino EMT

Patti

I've just found out that Friday's priority medical

wasn't handled as badly as it sounded over the main

radio channel. It turns out, all of us only heard partial

bits of what was going on and it only sounded like there

was no EMT with this guest seizure.

I finally spoke with the officer who was the one who was yelling

so urgently then that day. He told me more about what had

been happening and he told me that he never even heard me

trying to help him in the part of a minute before MD fire was

toned out.

It turns out a supervisor WAS there. He was the one relaying

to the officer to tell dispatch some critical information, which

then was mis-interpreted by me as "an EMT not there yet"

horror and as an "regular officer panicking" by the supe down

in dispatch who returned that scathing seeming order. All of

everything was only partially clear transmissions. The rest

was static because too many people were trying to talk at the same

time all at once.

The EMT, my partner, had run from the hotel, but was very busy

with airway and spinal control on the guest, who was regaining

consciousness and trying to sit with very severe, aggressive

deep fountaining, head bleeding out the back of his neck and

out his right ear. The guest blacked out soon after and that was

why my partner wasn't talking on any channel, med or main.

His gloves were full protecting C-spine.

MD Fire did arrive and long boarded and rapid sequence intubated

the man immediately en route to our hospital. It was quickly found

that the man had badly fractured the base of his skull right at C-1

when he passed out and hit his head on a machine. Doctors found

that he had an active arterial epidural hematoma going on around

the cerebellum and brain stem.

A med flight helicopter was called immediately to take the man

to a Level I trauma center.

Turns out the man died suddenly despite all possible care

in midflight after losing most of his blood supply through his

decompressed fracture.

I just took a deep breath after hearing all of what REALLY happened

that morning. It had just been the way coincidental phrases broke

through the radio during that minute or so that had sounded so

desperate to horrify us all. Only misleading parts of a whole

conversation.

But, yes, that supe in dispatch was disciplined for transmitting

interference during a 10-90 radio traffic situation which calls for

absolute radio silence except from those working the emergency

after any priority medical tones are sounded. I had obeyed that

myself even while chafing at being stuck at my door post.

But I am glad the EMT firehouse director is still investigating the

no officer EMT free on the floor problem. There is still the fact that

my partner had to come from so far both times for both that cardiac

arrest and the skull fracture cases. It really bothers me that I was so

close by, without the recourse of being able to be relieved simply

because there weren't enough officers free off the money cart drop

details to do so.

Twelve of them were tied up doing that then, leaving only two on the

floor to cover the rest of the finance escorts that typically go on after

the four a.m. time slot.

They, in those moments, had been tied up with money or door post first

responsibilities, too, just like me.

My initial concern of officer EMT inavailability is valid and still holds in

my eyes and in others' I've since found. These new details I've learned

about only serve to make it ... a smidgeon tinier.