Ambulance Workers To Face Discipline In a Death in Bronx....

[WelshMedic]

Yeah, but Jim Kerr did sing: "Dont, dont you forget about me".

So he got his wish, didn't he?

WM

[Richard B the EMT]

Jim was actually one of my EMT Instructor/Coordinators at a refresher I took prior to my entrance into NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation EMS. I've been with NYC HHC EMS/FDNY EMS from June 3, 1985, and involved with ambulance services from the fall of 1973.

[Asysin2leads]

Not to excuse the actions of these two, but I will offer this: While the responsibility falls on the two individuals, I believe that part of the problem is the system. The NYC EMS system is incredibly wasteful when it comes to triaging calls. When between the call receiving operators and the dispatch protocols, every patient with a runny nose and a history of a heart murmur 10 years ago becomes a cardiac call type, tragedies like this, when someone is a legitimate cardiac patient, can and do happen.

Again, I am not excusing the actions of these individuals, but the purpose of a triage system is to find the critical patients and send the appropriate resources. In New York City, currently, given the dispatch system, an intoxicated person laying on the street gets a full CFR, PD, and ALS response, and call receivers cannot differentiate between someone saying "I'm having trouble breathing" because their nose is stuffed up, and "I'm having trouble breathing" because they are having a heart attack.

In a land where everyone is treated as a cardiac patient, the true cardiac patients are treated like everyone else. That's my opinion.

[Richard B the EMT]

Until those of us in the EMS field operations can have the LEOs ticket for something akin to sending a false alarm for calling in a "Heart Attack" just to get an ambulance quicker...

But, as I have stated before, all aspects of the 9-1-1 systems have become a victim of their own success.