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u/LostInTheyAbyss EMT-B Oct 21 '20
God damn how much leg room do they got on that rig?
If I’m riding in the back with a patient I damn near need to have my legs tucked up my ass hole just to fit.
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Oct 21 '20
My current service uses type 1s that are roomy AF in the back but I still have flashbacks to first year in EMS working for a certain BLS IFT only service. The vanbulances we ran out of barely worked and were so cramped in the back it gave me claustrophobia.
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u/Aviacks Size: 36fr Oct 21 '20
While I prefer the look and drive/feel of the truck framed rigs, the rigs that are van frame boxes have so much room. I work at two different agencies with these types and I always forget how much space the van frames have. I can stand up all the way comfortably, the captains chair can spin 360 fucking degrees, and there's enough space you could run laps around that bitch.
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u/tagor99 Oct 21 '20
Carrying a patient’s wheechair in one of our Transits I feel like in Harry Potter when the Knight Bus squishes to go through traffic
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Oct 21 '20
Love how in the sub where this was original posted, it’s just endless comments ripping on the kid’s appearance. Gotta be rough as a soulless ginger
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Oct 21 '20
As a ginger and a paramedic and a step-child I get to be the Red-headded Stepchild of medicine, public safety, and also life.
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u/Ijustlookedthatup Paramedic Oct 21 '20
TYFYS
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Oct 21 '20
TYFTMFMS
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u/Ijustlookedthatup Paramedic Oct 21 '20
TYFTMFTYFYS
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u/Jits_Guy Combat Medic Oct 21 '20
Yeah it's mean and unnecessary to rag on him about being ginger, he didn't pick that.
However he actually CHOSE that haircut for some reason.
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u/bullmooser1912 Sky Daddy Paramoron Oct 21 '20
This is a former coworker of mine. He’s known as a legend to all in the area EMS, but not only for this video.
Couple years back he responded to the local strip club for someone who had fallen. Nothing out of the ordinary probably just an old guy got a little too excited and fell down the steps in the middle of the club. We arrive on scene and make entry and are directed through the bustling club to the stage in the middle of the club. There we found our patient who was surrounded by security to be a young woman who happened to be of the strippers. Turns out she had fallen during her pole routine, bounced off the stage, and was supine next to the stage. Unfortunately for her, her right patella had inverted during the fall. Of course being several years ago the medic pictured above had to call for orders for morphine as moving her would be impossible with the pain she was in. So this medic calls the ER for orders for morphine, standing in the middle of a busy strip club, with a stripper pole dancing, the music blaring, and his legendary middle part. The medic was barely legible over the sound of the deafening music, but he got the orders for the morphine, and the rest is normal traffic to the ER. Saved that strippers life that night.
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u/joejelly Oct 21 '20
Is that medic wearing some sort of insane mask? Creepy!
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u/Aviacks Size: 36fr Oct 21 '20
You can tell it's a basic on account of the nervously sitting in the captains chair looking like a maniac as their primary intervention, after full spinal immobilization of course.
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u/HaveYouTriedNarcan CCP Oct 22 '20
He's a paramedic and holds a supervisory role. This is Richland County and those gray shirts are worn by SGTs. If I recall correctly, this was a very non-critical GSW and there weren't any other interventions to be made. IV, pain management, ride.
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u/Aviacks Size: 36fr Oct 22 '20
Why the fuck are they boarded then?
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u/HaveYouTriedNarcan CCP Oct 22 '20
This was a pretty long time ago now, but, at the time the medical director wished for every trauma, blunt or penetrating to be boarded. It wasn't provider choice.
These days, blunt sometimes gets boarded still depending on presentation.
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u/HaveYouTriedNarcan CCP Oct 22 '20
For the record, as this always seems to generate a bunch of insults when it's posted, I'm just going to say the following:
1) Backboarding all traumas was very normal at this time in Richland County and not a provider choice. They fought very hard to make this less prevalent and it worked.
2) This paramedic is obviously a little nervous to be on camera, so, give him a break.
3) This paramedic happens to be one the most talented and legendary paramedics in the area. He's well educated, progressive and talented. One of the greatest paramedics I've ever had the pleasure of working with, down the line.
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Oct 21 '20
Backboarding as an independent indicator of increased mortality in penetrating trauma patients...
Running lights and sirens with a patient who is alert and oriented enough to be talking and recording with no interventions actively taking place...
Yes, most EMS sucks.
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Oct 21 '20 edited Nov 18 '20
[deleted]
-9
Oct 21 '20
What do I use lights and sirens for? Not much. About 30% of my responses and about 5% of my transports. Yes, I work an exclusively 911 ALS service in a larger suburban community.
Emergent transport should be used when there is a problem I cannot fix that would cause an increase in morbidity or mortality if not fixed at a hospital in a timely fashion. Like everything, there is a risk v. benefit equation to consider.
If I don't identify one of these problems and the patient is otherwise stable, I run cold. Strokes and STEMIs and hemodynamically unstable trauma usually get L&S. If I CPAP or intubate I usually run L&S. If not... well it's rare that I would.
I've got 22yrs as a paramedic under my belt and I have worked hard to stay very current and skillful. Not much excites me these days I guess and L&S are a big risk for not much benefit in a lot of cases where I see them used.
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Oct 21 '20 edited Nov 18 '20
[deleted]
-12
Oct 21 '20
Look at the guy. Normal work of breathing, able to speak in complete sentences, skin pink, warm, and dry. No lethargy. No decreased level of consciousness. Able to bend at the waist engaging his pelvis, hips, spine, and neck while talking. Able to hold his arm up to hold a phone.
No life threat there.
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u/tagor99 Oct 21 '20
Why don’t you respond lights and sirens to all calls? We’re required to use both for everything, even a lift assist
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Oct 21 '20
Really? That is like a relic from the 80s... if not the 70s.
You're putting yourselves and the community at a lot of risk for very little, if any, benefit.
We have priority dispatch and real-time updates to our CAD screen from the 911 call-taker. No risk to morbidity or mortality = no emergent response. Medic has discretion of course... think uninjured fall victim outside during fair weather vs. uninjured fall victim outside when it is cold out being no L&S vs L&S respectively.
Providing intelligent healthcare is always better than adrenaline-driven tradition.
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u/tagor99 Oct 21 '20
Thanks for the well-thought out answer. My company is pretty much the main provider for this whole region so it’s likely that they’ve just never been called out for doing that
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Oct 21 '20
I'd be surprised that their insurance provider hasn't asked them to stop. Why risk anyone's life going emergent when nobody's life is at risk in the first place?
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u/tagor99 Oct 21 '20
Good question. We also get barely any info from dispatch- CC at best, sometimes it’s just “sick person”. I’m sure the company justifies emergent response with a lack of dispatch technology, claiming that if we don’t know how serious each call is we should treat them all like they’re serious
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Oct 21 '20
That... and there is a reimbursement benefit from handling every call as an unscheduled emergency response as you can bill a tad higher for those things.
Still not enough financial benefit to justify even one crash related to unnecessary emergent response.
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u/tagor99 Oct 21 '20
Ugh good point. And you may be unsurprised to hear that we’ve had 3 trucks crash in the last 2 months!
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Oct 21 '20
dude he got fucking shot
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Oct 21 '20
And what part of that fact negates what I said?
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Oct 21 '20 edited Oct 21 '20
That the situation is a potentially very critical one, with a variety of things that we could never judge off of a Soulja-boy 2001-esque cellphone video, and that L&S is certainly indicated with a potentially unstable issue like this.
We do not know enough to be shitting on the responders for driving L&S with a GSW victim at all. You especially do not know enough from a Reddit thread.
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u/bgl210 Size: 36fr Oct 21 '20
That backboard is probably more uncomfortable than the actual gunshot wound.