fire911medic Posted March 2, 2007 Share Posted March 2, 2007 EMS professionals beware. There are few out there who don't have some form of website out there, but there is an increasing amount of public safety people losing their jobs for what they post on the internet (even if they don't reveal names of where they work, patient names, etc). Currently, there are 15 people that I know of facing action in their counties for either posting pictures or things in blogs about their work. It has made me remove everything from my websites and take down any pictures I had (even though they didn't compromise patient identity or privacy). I am erroring on the side of caution as I like my job and would prefer not to lose it. People be smart and safe out there. Let's be careful ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MedicNorth Posted March 2, 2007 Share Posted March 2, 2007 Good advice - I know of a few who have had some problems as well. I have definitely seen some things here that I certainly would not have posted, but there also seem to be some employers out there who take a perverse pleasure in seeking out and disciplining posters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paramedicmike Posted March 2, 2007 Share Posted March 2, 2007 This is not a problem specific to EMS. People across the country, regardless of industry, job or placement within a company, are losing not only jobs but legal action against them for items posted in blogs. No matter the steps taken to ensure anonymity, if it can be traced back to you you're potentially in a precarious position of losing your job. Pay your money, take your chances. You're not prohibited from doing it. You're just putting your job and livelihood in jeopardy. -be safe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redcell19512 Posted March 2, 2007 Share Posted March 2, 2007 My company's website has fire and accident scene photographs that were taken by our personnel, usually one of the supervisors. They follow two rules. 1. Pics are not taken until all the victims have been transported off the scene 2. License plates and addresses are protected/edited out of the picture. Still, I find the practice to be unacceptable. I remember looking at pics from a fatal accident and thinking, gee, if the victim's friends or family came across our website (let's say they want our address so they can send us a thank you card for trying to help) and saw these pics, what would they think? My company is not the exception here. A lot of agencies have "scene" pictures on their websites. I just don't get it. Pictures you take while you are on duty shouldn't have been taken in the first place and certainly should not appear on your own website. If you get caught you should be disciplined. Fired? Maybe that's a bit harsh, unless you've already been a naughty employee in the past. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ladyemt51_2000 Posted March 2, 2007 Share Posted March 2, 2007 I am very careful about what information I put out on the www. When I created a myspace account, I kept in mind that a possible employer might be seeing my page and I was diligent in taking care in adding the contents. It just makes good sense to be more careful nowadays in so many aspects, be it personally or likewise. I don't agree with posting departments pics for the reasons stated by the above posters. There are so many implications and the possibility of the pictures being veiwed by family members is just a place I don't want to go. As a side note, at a place where I work, which is non-EMS related, I recently found the Yahoo profile and myspace account of my new supervisor. Had my employer taken the time to investigate before hiring her.....well, her credibility would have been shot before she even got in the door. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest CHP medic Posted March 2, 2007 Share Posted March 2, 2007 My agency is getting sued for $20 million right now because photos of a body at a collision scene ended up on the internet. http://www.policeone.com/legal/articles/1210054/ CHP sued over release of car wreck photos; images appeared on hundreds of websites By Garrett Therolf, Times Staff Writer Los Angeles Times Shortly after 18-year-old Nikki Catsouras died in a car accident, her relatives began receiving mysterious e-mails and text messages. When they opened the messages, the family members were confronted again and again with gruesome, detailed scenes of the crash, including photos that showed the woman's decapitated body. Catsouras' uncles looked closer at the photos and believed they recognized a surprising source: they had been taken by California Highway Patrol investigators. When the Catsouras family confronted the CHP, the family said, officers acknowledged that the photos had been improperly released to the public. The family discovered that the photos of the Ladera Ranch woman's Oct. 31 crash on California 241 in Lake Forest have appeared on hundreds of websites worldwide, where they were posted alongside hard-core pornography, pictures of human deformities and other sometimes grotesque curiosities. The websites exposed the family to the vicious side of the Internet world, where people hide behind alter egos to satisfy their sadism and hurt others. In this case, people sent the gruesome photos to e-mail addresses of family members they found through websites and other sources. Some of the messages have landed with subject lines that disguised them as advertisements; others were intended to appear that they came from friends. The family learned that even unrelated people named Catsouras were also receiving the e-mails. "There are just a lot of ugly people doing ugly things," said Lesli Catsouras, Nikki's mother. Lesli, her husband, Christos, and their three surviving daughters stopped using their e-mail accounts when the messages began to arrive a few days after Nikki's death, and the family hired an attorney to file a financial claim against the CHP, a precursor to a lawsuit. In the claim filed Dec. 28 with the California Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board, the Catsouras family requests $20 million for emotional distress and punitive damages. The claim alleges that the investigating officer e-mailed the photographs to a CHP dispatcher, who then e-mailed them to the "general public." Miles Bristow, a spokesman for the claims board, said the agency would probably consider the claim at a Feb. 22 meeting in Sacramento. CHP spokesman Tom Marshall said his agency was investigating whether a CHP officer actually took the photographs and how they came to appear online. He said this was the first allegation of this type he could remember. CHP policy and the California Vehicle Code require that such evidence be released only to people involved in the accident or their authorized agents. Punishment could range from a verbal reprimand to termination, Marshall said. In the meantime, the CHP is working with the family to contact more than 800 websites posting the photographs, asking them to stop displaying the images, Marshall said. Myspace.com and other websites have complied. Others have refused and cited the 1st Amendment and other provisions, according to Keith Bremer, the Catsourases' attorney. Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times All Rights Reserved Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fire911medic Posted March 3, 2007 Author Share Posted March 3, 2007 I know several departments (including mine) which post pictures from trainings or public relations stuff on the web. However, no pictures from actual scenes are EVER placed up out of courtesy to the victims. We do have some REALLY cool pics up though from training fires, extrication trainings we've done, where we had helicopters in for PR events, and things like "prom night" which we do for the local high schools. I have no problems with those being on the web, as I believe most people don't. I think it actually does good for the community to see how we train for those big bad things which are featured on the tv. As far as who leaked the pictures of the terrible wreck from CHP, that was poor judgement to say the least. It should never have been posted. I hope they are held responsible for the grief they caused that family. I've been to some hairy scenes and would never consider posting something like that....what were they thinking? Oh that's right, they weren't ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itku2er Posted March 3, 2007 Share Posted March 3, 2007 Just goes to show you that we are in a SUE HAPPY world you can sneeze wrong and get sued...... So always be on the side of caution.........when in doubt DONT TERRI LYNN Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WendyT Posted March 3, 2007 Share Posted March 3, 2007 Because what we see as being harmless can really do damage and that's really ashame. When you goto someone's site and you want to use it in yours you see that its copyrighted, so you need permission to use it, unless you like or love legal actions taken against you. It's only fair, at least your butt is safe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chief1C Posted March 3, 2007 Share Posted March 3, 2007 Boy, I dunno.. The pics of the girl in the wreck from the CHP photos was, wow.. gory to say the least. I've seen shot gun injuries to the head, but not body between speeding car and solid concrete. There was a lot of matter on the ground. Not really a decapitation, more like a severe crush injury with evacuation of the cranium. Still, had I never seen anything like that and didn't have the ability to prepare myself mentally, you know what I mean, I probably would have vomited. If I knew that was my child, first, I'd probably go into total emotional shock, then I'd vomit.. then I would kill who ever sent it to me.. and maybe sue afterward.. The least you could do w/ the cash is educate youngsters to SLOW THE F*CK DOWN.. eh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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