News Reported Scenes

[Imacho]

Have you noticed that the news channels that respond to your scene will always way over exaggerate / lie about the incidents?

I had a scene with a traumatic arrest in one vehicle and a simple knee pain / AMA in the other vehicle. News reports the pronounced pt was extricated then pronounced and the other driver was transported with severe life threatening injuries.

No extrication was executed and the other pt wanted to AMA but then accepted transport with no further complaints.

Makes me quite mad if it is intentional simply for sensationalism.

 

[Mainspring]

that's news for you though...

sensational journalism, it's what sells. almighty ratings.

 

[Medic Tim]

Our local fire chief loves to talk to reporters( when he isn't in our way) he doesn't let little things like facts get in the way of telling everyone how the firefighters did everything and saved everyone .

 

[Handsome Robb]

I'll trade you. Your inaccurate journalists for mine that set up their rig at the back doors of my ambulance looking in. Even had one open the doors after I closed them in his face. PD handled that for me pretty quickly.

 

[Tigger]

The other day we were dispatched for a woman shot in the head who had been found in a ditch on the side of a state highway. In fact the patient was neither shot nor in a ditch, however she was extremely high on meth and apparently beat the living piss out of herself with a maglite which did in fact necessitate flight flying her instead of a two hour ground transport.

The next day the headlines said "Woman found with gunshot wound found in ditch on side of the road."

There was no reporter on scene. They wrote a story purely off radio traffic.

 

[titmouse]

The other day we were dispatched for a woman shot in the head who had been found in a ditch on the side of a state highway. In fact the patient was neither shot nor in a ditch, however she was extremely high on meth and apparently beat the living piss out of herself with a maglite which did in fact necessitate flight flying her instead of a two hour ground transport.

The next day the headlines said "Woman found with gunshot wound found in ditch on side of the road."

There was no reporter on scene. They wrote a story purely off radio traffic.

Could it be said that she has "found the light"?

 

[Handsome Robb]

The other day we were dispatched for a woman shot in the head who had been found in a ditch on the side of a state highway. In fact the patient was neither shot nor in a ditch, however she was extremely high on meth and apparently beat the living piss out of herself with a maglite which did in fact necessitate flight flying her instead of a two hour ground transport.



The next day the headlines said "Woman found with gunshot wound found in ditch on side of the road."



There was no reporter on scene. They wrote a story purely off radio traffic.

We used to have a medic here who would go on non-emergent calls to a SNF at like 2 am and call "medic xx on scene, assuming incident command". Then they'd watch the news vans pull up and start driving in circles looking for whatever was going on as they were driving away.

Because our MCI protocol requires a whole lot more information than that and always requires us to say "medic xx declaring an MCI, assuming incident command" or "medic xx declaring an MCI pre-alert" (which starts the same balls rolling except the notifications don't go out to the hospitals or other agencies, just all internal alerts) then ask for a channel and give our size up. So our dispatch always knew what was going on.

I'm told it was pretty entertaining. It, unfortunately, was before my time.

 

[Tigger]

Could it be said that she has "found the light"?

Yea she found it alright, and apparently this is not the first time she'd done it either so maybe the light needs to find her.

And Robb, that is awesome, maybe we'll start doing it. Our dispatch is so useless that they probably wouldn't even notice.

 

[TheLocalMedic]

I always get a little annoyed when the fire department gets all the credit while the medics get no mention. Yep, they were there, but they didn't do anything more than carry my bags and bluster around importantly…

 

[Handsome Robb]

I always get a little annoyed when the fire department gets all the credit while the medics get no mention. Yep, they were there, but they didn't do anything more than carry my bags and bluster around importantly…

I had a drowning this summer.

Every single news agency said "The police department attempted to resuscitate and transported the patient to the hospital with help of Paramedics but were unsuccessful."

Yea. PD did CPR, then I showed up and did EVERYTHING else while fire stood at the top of the bank and said he was too far gone. Then I got pulses back in the ambulance but lost them again. But yea I was just there helping the police, it was their show.

 

[Handsome Robb]

And Robb, that is awesome, maybe we'll start doing it. Our dispatch is so useless that they probably wouldn't even notice.

I'm pretty sure some of the new dispatchers we have wouldn't catch on either.

Sometimes if we've got a cool dispatcher on at night we'll have a little fun. I had a call on a street called "Fuggles Rd". I called on scene and the dispatcher comes back "Copy, Medic 38 on scene assuming Fuggles command".

Then he proceeded to address me as Fuggles command for the entire call. "10-4, Fuggles command has patient contact at 0257." I called and asked to cancel fire then they walked in right as I was doing it and told him to disregard. "10-4 Fuggles command has no need for the big red truck, Fuggles command verbally canceling fire at 0259" Fire got all butthurt. I thought it was funny.

He just wouldn't stop either. I started playing along and said "Fuggles command terminated, transporting one and a rider to xxx". "Copy that, Medic 38 now has Fuggles Transport Command to xxx". Then "Fuggles Transport Command out at xxx at 0325." Finally ended it with "Fuggles Transport Command terminated at 0350, welcome back Medic 38."

 

[Imacho]

I always get a little annoyed when the fire department gets all the credit while the medics get no mention. Yep, they were there, but they didn't do anything more than carry my bags and bluster around importantly…

So true. Ive seen the FF walking around aimlessly when news vans are on scene. Meanwhile, we're in the bolance stabilizing the pt before we transport.