firemoose827

I, like many people, was at work. I used to work for a Fire Suppression System company and tuesday morning was my Hydrotesting day. I had the radio on listening to The Edge and was filling out a report on the testing I was doing when I heard about the first plane. I ran in and told the other guy who was making a stainless steel hood at the time, and he kinda just looked at me and smiled. So I ran to his radio and turned it up, he just sat with his jaw on the floor. I remember trying to call home to my wife and the phone line not working, than by chance I called my mother and got through, she told me about the news footage and seeing a crushed fire truck...I swallowed hard and just remember saying, "Oh god mom, all of those firefighters who just died..." My mom was crying and I told her I was going home to find out if we were going to send some help down. I remember telling my brother on the phone I was going to head down and I could hear his voice shaking when he told me to be carefull. Due to the fact that Hundreds of firefighters from all over the nation were showing up they cancelled our statewide mutual aid response and I didnt go...I sat in front of the TV for the rest of the day watching...unsure of what to do.

Interesting...did everyone see the battery length on these things?? Not very long, is it? Just something else to replace batteries in. I dont think its a good idea, your back-up man or officer should have a light as well as irons or hook.

Thanks feraldan, I thought I just had to put the address and it would link. Thanks for your input. Moose

mrk303, just wanted to offer any assistance I can offer. I am a GIS Analyst at work, so feel free to e-mail me or PM me with questions. I have FD maps of hydrants, water mains, hazard areas, haz-mat maps with buffers and zones, locations of CP's, stores for logistical needs etc. Give me a shout and we can talk GIS. Good luck brother. Moose

Just as an afterthought to this topic, something I thought about this weekend at work as I responded to my second MVA, I have responded to MANY MVA's where theres law enforcement or a Fire Chief on scene stating there is "no injuries" and to respond at our discretion or not at all. We responded to the scene and found at least one person with cuts and bruises, or GASHES, bleeding, shaking, and even once where the person was NOT fully alert. Now, to somewhat support what Jetphoto was saying, had we, as the EMS provider, listened to the units on scene (with very little to NO EMS experience) and simply called back in service and returned to station...what would happen to us down the road? Whos to say the person wouldnt find out later that he/she was in fact hurt and that they should have received ems attention? My simple point is, research all the facts and laws you want, the plain simple fact of the matter for ME is...Id rather argue the point of what I DID do rather than what I DIDNT do. To me, its just crazy to not take the 5 measly minutes, go say "Hello, my name is Barf, Im an EMT, are you OK?" and actually SEE for yourself the PT's Condition. That simple question alone will do most of your primary assesment for you without even touching the "PT", "Victim", "Person involved in MVA". When they answer, you see the status of their airway, breathing and if any Altered mental status exists. To me, Im already dispatched, on the scene or close to it, I just take the 5 minutes, call in service on the scene, do a quick LOC check and than have them sign anyway...Just in case...that way if they DO try and start something I take out the PCR, show my documentation, and then the SIGNATURE of the subject with PD witnessing...end of argument. This way also, looks more professional. Im NOT trying to start anything or hurt anyones feelings here, but sharing my personal experiences. I read all of the posts with quotes from DOH and what state officials say but when you think of it, if your on the stand defending yourself, are those officials going to be there supporting us? Is the prosecuting lawyer going to just settle with the laws or are they going to look for every loophole possible? The excuse of " I needed to get back in service for the next call" will not do you any good, because the next question the lawyers ask is, "Was there a call within the next few minutes and can you show a PCR to prove it?" When Im on the stand I will have a copy of my PCR with the Pt's Signature and documentation of the fact I assesed the Pt's condition and explained the consequences of what certain injuries are capable of doing....sometimes HOURS after the fact...and the fact the Pt still refused to be treated by us. It took only 5 minutes of our time, I never layed a hand on the individuall, and I have a signature...return to station feeling better about the situation. The topic of doing this to ensure a company can BILL for services.....?????.....In my company we cant bill unless we "Treat" the Pt. We generate a PCR for every time we are dispatched, regardless of Pt contact or not, you need a PCR for everything, even stand-bys. Asking a person how they are feeling is not treatment, getting them to sign something stating they have been told of the consequences and still refuse treatment, is not treatment. Its a step to protect yourself, your crew, and your organization from all the sue-happy individualls out there who just dont care about anyone but themselves. Just some more thoughts to encourage further discussion. Please, no one take anything im saying personally, or as a reason to argue, because Im not arguing, just adding more fuel for thought. Moose

I just recently had a surge in Pregnancy transports at my part time EMS job, and I noticed that every time we received the transfer they wanted us to respond DELTA....and when we arrived at the ED the doctor was pacing in the halls and more nervous than the father?!!! We just strolled in and received our report from the ED nurse, and the whole time the doctor was behind us urging us to leave quickly...Why????? Our patients presented with contractions around 2-5 minutes apart, water had broken, and on the one the mucous plug did release but there was no crowning, no "urge to make number 2", and no real distress or urgent symptoms. But the doctor still wanted us to move...My Medic partner did request me to go Code 3 on one, but, she was "Immaculately Concepted"....she absolutely denied being pregnant and was adamant about the fact she didnt have Whoopie in 2 years so we dubbed her "mary"...but due to the fact she had no pre-natal care at all, she was presumed to be 2 months past due and she was in tremendous pain, my medic decided to not take chances and we transported code 3. How does everyone else receive these transports? How does everyone handle the 911 pregnant calls? Just curious to see if anyone has any similar stories or experiences and how each agency handles these types of calls, either emergency or transports. Thanks in advance. Moose

Hey all, just a proud daddy wanting to show off some pics of my daughters first B-Day party!! Notice I got most of the cake!!! Enjoy.

Oh yah!! Its awesome to watch your baby eat cake...and paint with cake....and throw cake!!! Congrats on your little one!!! May your first b-day be just as fun....Advice; wear a PONCHO! In our family its tradition for the one year old to have her own small b-day cake to eat/throw/share!! Thanks everyone for your comments! Good luck with your child onthewheel, enjoy every moment!! Stay safe Moose

I have been a part of many discussions involving this topic and I have been a part of many ACTUALL cases in the field. To be honest, we can talk about this untill we are blue in the face, but with all the legal issues Im covering my but every time and doing what I feel to be right...for both the PT, my crew and I. These are all "What if" scenarios that I am sure everyone here on these forums encounters every day. If I am enroute to an MVA and a PD unit is on scene telling me there are no injuries, everyone refused medical aid there is two ways to handle the situation...If you trust the PD than you return to service and return to station. If something happens Im sure the PD unit has taken the information from the pt and has documented the refusal of treatment, and the dispatch center has the tapes of the ambulance being cancelled on the air. What I would do is different than what most of you would do though...I know and trust my local village PD units, 2 of them are on volunteer fire depts and rescue squads and they actively assist my volunteer squad all the time as we are simultaneously dispatched to EMS calls in the village. They know to have us respond incident under control and check out the pt's anyway. We will go to the scene, ascertain LOC and if any injuries are present and if they are A&OX3 we have them sign off with PD witnessing. If they are underage the PD unit contacts a parent/gaurdian and receives permission to release the minor. It works out well for us, I AM NOT SAYING THIS IS HOW EVERYONE SHOULD HANDLE THE SITUATION. This is the way we do it here and we have had no problems. I always air on the side of caution and cover my but and keep my organization in mind and protect them as well. It takes two minutes to do a quick assesment and get a signature. This is a good topic that we all should be talking about and sharing our experiences with each other on. Im interested to find out how other agencies work with their local PD and what they do in these situations. To all of you members who ARE PD, what advice do you have for us EMS? I think our EMT training should have more detailed lectures on the subject of legal issues in EMS, when I went through the initial EMT class in 1994 we received a brief lecture on the legal issues, just barely touching on each aspect and then we were on to the next lesson. Are there any instructors out there who agree? Disagree? Stay dry in the "Hurricane" were supposed to have Sunday and stay safe. Hopefully it misses us alltogether!!

Good Idea. This will make the snoopers either join in the discussions or leave. I support it. I like to see a little about who I am talking too also, their experience, age, affiliations etc. etc., and if they leave things blank they either dont have experience or are just stubborn....either way I tend to leave them alone. This site has some talented, educated, experienced people whom I enjoy learning from. There are some members I actually look forward to seeing posts from and actively seek their names when I first sign on. This will just make the site more enjoyable without the senseless jabs and insults from people we know nothing about. Now at least you need to submit some basic info about yourself and its on the post for all to see. STand behind your opinions and comments, instead of hiding behind a computer name. PS- What is the "watch desk", another web forum? Is there an address for this site? Thank You.

Well, sorry to hear about your families experiences. That had to be a scary situation for them, being in unknown territory without a ride and having a Law Enforcement Officer tell them "Go that way but you will probably be mugged".... Hy heart sinks to hear of things like that, this world is turning into a terrible place. But still, every once in a while you get people like the Cab driver who finaly stepped up and helped out...hopefully he didnt charge them for the ride!!!! Maybe the cop was on another detail, or being sent to another call with priority and he felt sorry for the woman and probably spoke to her sarcastically to get the driver to help her...we will never know what truly happened and why the officer couldnt help, but the GOOD thing is your family is safe and back home. I just think we sometimes forget how difficult and terrifying a cops job is, all the immature crap they have to deal with followed by moments of shear terror, not knowing friend from foe, whos going to shoot at you or attempt to run you over...I respect them. I have 3 brothers who are FT law enforcement...an assistant chief of mine is a trooper, a brother of mine a Sherriffs off., and another chief from a neighboring fire dept is a village cop here. I listen to their stories and experiences. Did the Yankees Loos.....I mean, how did the Yankees do? Stay Safe Moose

Thank You Brotha...We had a good time and had a lot of cake!

First off, congrats on taking the first step towards becoming an EMT!! Yes, there are night classes you can take. You can either go through your county when they offer one which is usually 2 nights a week for about 2-3 months...or you can look up the courses in your local college. They usually have night/weekend classes. I took mine when I was in school too, you just have to stay focused and pay attention or you could easily loose track. Listen to your instructors and all of your senior people in your squad/agency and you will do fine. I believe you can test as long as your b-day falls before the testing date...dont quote me though!!! Anyone else know more specifics about that? Good luck, and feel free to ask us here for help if and when you need it. Moose.

Thanks for the info ALS, I dont have much experience with "Tazers" and that was very helpful. Another question for you or any other member who might know...being its an Electrical Control Device, does it cause any interference with pace makers? I would imagine it doesnt pack enough power to interupt one but I thought I would ask just to clarify. Also, I believe everyone is correct in the belief that the minor was in the custody of the PD as soon as he was arrested and that a parents "signature" was not needed. If he was arrested than he was the responsibility of the PD.

Wow, 2,000 posts, excellent job guys. I look forward to reading posts from people like you who always offer great views and opinions. I hope to be looked up to as much as you guys are now. Great job!! Congrats! Moose

Excellent! I love that web site, it offers a slap in the face like that every now and than and keeps firefighters and EMS workers in line. Kind of ties in with the other post about the Canadian firefighter....doesnt it?

This is an interesting subject that I know little about. We dont get very many "Perps" up here, except for cow tippers, now THEY are dangerous.... Any more police officers out there that can share some more on this topic? I have never thought of this before and would have went to remove the barbs myself, than transport the subject for evaluation with an officer on board or following. Any more thoughts?

Funny!! A word of advice for new EMT's....dont ever ask that question when taking a BP, I did and it took 5 minutes to re-gain my hearing after she picked up the stethoscope and flicked it with her finger!! Ahhh, the joys of EMS and helping people...

EXACTLY!! As soon as you hear sufficient manpower has been gathered and some equipment has gone enroute....unplug the light. We need to slow it down, ESPECIALLY if you know you are closer to the scene than the station, you never know what or who will be near the scene. I RARELY use my blue light, and I get to the station just fine and in time. We must always think about our actions and put safety first. My sympathies to the family, my heart goes out to them.

Oh...I do stand up to the doctors here, trouble is my company doesnt. Both my medic partner and I were in the nurses station for 5 minutes trying to explain to Dr. Death that the transport could very well backfire in his face, and explained the COBRA laws that are similar to what stat213 stated, that the PT was HIS responsibility untill the receiving doctor RECEIVES the PT. He just kept waving us off saying "Yes yes yes, Im aware, now GO." We took a nurse with us, forgot to mention that. See, you need to understand the capabilities of the hospital we serve here in Schoharie County....its a first aid station! It has a small 7 bed ED with one Doc, a Radiology dept, Lab, outpatient clinic, and a small 20 bed inpatient unit. They are very limited to what they can do, but the nurses there are the best, and we try to help them every chance we get. The nurse that went with us ranted and raved about the doc the whole trip...out and back...saying he was a moron!! She didnt want to go back afterwords, she wanted to ride along with us the rest of her shift!! But, yes, I do understand all of this. Just wanted to hear some more war stories from everyone about OB calls/transports and how you handled them. Good stories so far!!! Thanks. Moose

Excellent article, he brings up good points. We use the Drive Cam in our rigs at work and I got to see it first hand. We were returning from a transport to one of the cities in our area and we were cut off by another driver attempting to reach a gas station on the right. The medic did an excellent job avoiding the imminent crash and I tried to help navigate through the mess. It was later reviewed by the Drive Cam and our supervisors saw what happened, saw the medics excellent defensive driving and me looking back to the right and determined it to be the other drivers fault. But.....the Drive Cam also showed our lifepack 12 bouncing around in the back because we forgot to strap it in. So we got warned and learned a lesson. Excellent article.

A; AYE! Q: Any Oposed?

MY FAULT!!! I just noticed MY typo....she was two WEEKS past due!!!Not two MONTHS!!! BIG difference!!! She delivered shortly after we got her there, probably within 5 minutes of two sweat covered pale EMT's pushing her through the door. We understood the need for urgency in this case, I was talking mainly about other pregnant calls where everyone seems to be in a rush to get things moving, we get the pt to the hospital, and they are released before we even clear the ED and return to service. With pregnancy there are sometimes so many false alarms and false labor pains. I try to go on assesment of the PT and what she actually called us for...on transports we listen to the Nurse in the ED and hear what they have to say...we have a small hospital here that cant do much for a lot of patients...OB being one. We tend to transport a lot of them to Albany or Cooperstown. My main reason for this question was to see if anyone else had similar experiences and how they have handeled them in the past. Another story of mine...we were called at 2:20AM for a 22 FM "In Labor, Water broken, contractions 3 minutes apart"...OK, we respond to the call and as we are pulling up to the house we see a woman standing on the front porch with her suitcase, jacket on, waiting???? We jump out the back of the amb with the gear and stretcher and head for the door as she climbs into the side door and sits on the captains chair???? I approach her and introduce myself, than ask if SHE called the amb. She smugly says "Yes, I need to get to a doctors apt at 8 AM but I had no ride so I called the amb...the hospital said I could spend the night." !!!!!!!!!!!!! I carefully and politely explain to her what we do on the amb and that we were called for a woman in labor, and that we dont provide taxi service. Than ended with the fact that someone else in our district could very well be in danger and need us...she shrugged and said "But I called 911, I have stomache pain." Long story short we took her to the hospital, ( Due to the "Stomache pain" ) and documented the holy heck out of it. Sorry for the mis-understanding with my typo....Not getting a lot of sleep. Thanks all. Moose

A: Give the new firefighter a line with a cellar nozzle attached and tell them its an old style fog nozzle....than stand back with a camera and watch the waterworks!! Q: Does anyone else know if this thread was started to get us to 100,000 posts or not?!?!?!?!? (Someones cheating!!! )

I agree...If I needed I FAST rescue I would never hear the end of it from the guys at the station!! I just think it would be interesting to have an outsider take a look at us and tell us what he thinks. Has he actually done this study yet? Cause it sounds like he is just starting. Just curious.