White Plains Rescue-Medic High Angle Rescue Drill

[Guest stephentyler20]

Just wanted to throw another 2 cents in here... Of course this is great for the citizens of White Plains and surrounding areas, especially those in high angle distress! Complements to the FD and PD for setting up a cool program.

My point was that it's just a shame that, once again, the EMS guys were left out of this. In a way, they were left out of their own turf! This all comes back down to the typical case of mistaken identity that's seen time and time again with EMS. Cops and Firefighters want to do their jobs... oh, and be medics too. What does that say about the medics who work hard to provide their valuable service? It's borderline insulting. Put another way - I'm a medic, but I often find myself in dangerous situations or facing criminals without police assistance. Screw it, I'm going to hit up the academy and become a medic-cop, and carry a gun and some handcuffs so I can do that too. It's easy right? It doesn't require any real experience, just the gun and the badge and less than a year of school right? Cool, now I can do two jobs too! Get my point?

So, good going to White Plains, and more should follow... But either let each agency do their respective jobs and work with each other properly, or frankly, eradicate EMS altogether, and incorporate EMT and Medic training into all FD and/or PD jobs (and as medic myself, I'm not even saying that's the wrong answer!). And by the way, I realize there are probably some PD-Medics who do both jobs well. But I will say with confidence that the best medics out there have a love and understanding of MEDICINE, not policework with a dash of medicine on the side, and that's what makes the difference with any job in the world. So if EMS is about medicine, then they should be there own separate entity. But if EMS is just going to be a subset of the "Real" emergency services, then make it just that - another skill set to have so someone can drive patients really really fast to the hospital.

Edited October 6, 2009 by stephentyler20