The First Law of EMS

[MAGICFITZPATRICK]

The First Law of EMS:

All emergency calls will wait until you begin to eat, without regard to the time.

The Law of Time:

1. There is absolutely no relationship between the time at which you are supposed to get off shift and the time at which you will get off shift.

The Law of Gravity:

Any instrument, when dropped, will always come to rest in the least accessible place possible

The Law of Time Versus Distance:

The distance of the call from the Hospital increases as the time to shift change decreases

The Rule of Random Syncronicity:

Emergency calls will randomly come in all at once.

The Law of Respiratory Arrest:

All patients who are vomiting and must be intubated will have just completed a large meal of Barbecue and Onions, Garlic Pizza, and Pickled Herring, all of which was washed down with at least three cans of Beer.

The Basic Principle for Dispatchers:

Assume that all field personnel are idiots until their actions prove your assumption.

The Basic Principle for Field Personnel:

Assume that all dispatchers are idiots until their actions prove your assumption.

The Axiom of Late Night Runs:

If you respond to any Motor Vehicle Accident call after Midnight and do not find a drunk on the scene, keep looking: somebody is still missing.

The Law of Options:

Any patient, when given the option of either going to Jail or going to the Hospital by a Police Officer, will always be inside the Ambulance before you are.

The Other Rules of Equipment:

Interchangeable parts don't

Leak proof seals will

Self-starters won't.

The First Law of Ambulance Operation:

No matter how fast you drive the Ambulance when responding to a call, it will never be fast enough, until you pass a Police Cruiser, at which point it will be entirely too fast. Unless you are responding to an"Officer Down" call then it is physically impossible to be travelling fast enough!

EMS Bathroom Rules:

If a call is received between 0500 and 0700, the location of the call will always be in a Bathroom.

If you have just gone to the Bathroom, no call will be received.

If you have not just gone to the Bathroom, you will soon regret it.

The probability of receiving a run increases proportionally to the time elapsed since last going to the Bathroom

The Law of Triage:

In any accident, the degree of injury suffered by a patient is inversely proportional to the amount and volume of agonized screaming produced by that patient.

The Gross Injury Law:

Any injury, the sight of which makes you want to puke, should immediately be covered by 4x4's and Kerlix

The Law of Light:

As the seriousness of any given injury increases, the availability of light to examine that injury decreases

The Law of Space:

The amount of space which is needed to work on a patient varies inversely with the amount of space which is available to work on that patient.

EMS Relativity:

The number of distraught and uncooperative relatives surrounding any given patient varies exponentially with the seriousness of the patient's illness or injury.

The Theory of Weight:

The weight of the patient that you are about to transport increases exponentially by the number of floors which must be ascended to reach the patient and the number of floors which must be descended while carrying the patient.

Corollary 1: Very heavy patients tend to gravitate toward locations which are furthest from mean sea level.

Corollary 2: If the patient is heavy, the elevator is broken, and the lights in the stairwell are out

The Rule of Warning Devices

Any Ambulance, whether it is responding to a call or traveling to a Hospital, with Lights and Siren, will be totally ignored by all motorists, pedestrians, and dogs which may be found in or near the roads along its route.

Corollary 1: Ambulance Sirens can cause acute and total, but transient, deafness.

Corollary 2: Ambulance Lights can cause acute and total, but transient, blindness.

The Law of Rules:

As soon as an EMS Rule is accepted as absolute, an exception to that Rule will immediately occur.

[spenac]

These were already posted in the past month.

[tskstorm]

fitzpatrick i posted them already, ... fitz where do you work ?