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I have been an EMT and Medic for 20+ years, much of it essentially a volunteer. I never regretted a minute of it and have always felt like an important part of an essential service and thankful that other circumstances allowed me to do EMS because I loved the chance to help. I lived through...

Any fair reading of my posts will show quite specific suggestions that have worked for us. There is no "magic" solution, just hard work. You are not exactly an easy person to help, since you feel you have already done all of which you feel you are capable. Your EMTs who depend upon you have...

Your islander neighbors are panicking. There is nothing on CNN that would lead a reasonable person to reach any of the conclusions you recite. There ARE 62,000 confirmed cases in the US today. More than 3 dozen DOCTORS have DIED in Italy. Some (not all) some EMS agencies ARE re-using single...

Sorry. I assumed you meant real news media. You are correct, Fox News as an example was formed by Mr Murdock as a propaganda machine and never intended to be a real news outlet.

Links? No wonder you are having trouble. Call you long-time sources and look for acceptable substitiutes. No, you will not of course find Medical N95 now. You MAY find construction N95s. You will be able to find some re-useable (more expensive) equal or better (also expensive). Single-use...

We will have to disagree on that one. I share and support your willingness to risk your life. I am equally bothered by your (apparently unilateral) decision to risk your family, especially if your family include minor children. That can of course be a cultural and/or religious matter I...

Actually Fireman, I did NOT say I would call of sick. I said I would NOT compromise other patients and my loved ones by breaking the 'we do not enter unsafe scenes' rule. That means I would turn down calls that cannot be handled because of a lack of reasonably adequate safety supplies or...

Assuming that people turn to the news media to learn the facts of the world around them, competition would serve to foster and improve accurate reporting. Accurate reporting would be desired by those readers seeking factual information. Readers looking for comfort (regardless of accuracy)...

In this age of Evidence Based Medicine, it seems odd to me that you blame the news media for the consequences of a pandemic. Seems like you are saying that that you are not sick until you know it and that so long as you do not know about a problem, risk or threat it does not exist in your...

Mike: With all due respect, you did not read what I wrote. I rather plainly said that there are OTHER products that will work but are more costly. If you are risking your people because you are not reading the information available to you, please maybe consider getting some sleep and taking a...

Well, we can probably agree that it is NOT your responsibility or mine to buy our agency's/department's PPE but that it is their duty to do so. It would be our medical director's responsibility to be sure that the "available" resources and caches ARE adequate. It is the states responsibility...

It makes the point that there is a disconnect somewhere along the line and that safety (a fundamental and good policy) can be interpreted and potentially bent so it barely resembles its original purpose. The staging-while-patient-died was not long a ago and the...

My partner and I staged where we were told to. In our opinion there never was any threat to us. Dispatch had been told, and she passed on to us when we requests available details, that the RP was a neighbor who had witnessed the patient shoot himself and stagger to the road. Law enforcement...

There is no single paragraph that says all that in one place. That is not unusual in the federal legal area. Statutes usually contain broad directions and form departments, administrations, agencies, bureaus, services, ,etc, etc. Each of those governmental sub-parts drafts, publishes, and...

On this point my experience is entirely different from yours. When I started, we routinely restrained patients on our own (without law enforcement) unless they had firearms or knives). Now, we are required to "stage" (basically hide around the corner and await law enforcement) on many calls...

Cops and firefighters ALWAYS face a higher risk level than EMS. But they are trained for those threats and let's face it, they are better able physically to defend themselves than are we (admittedly, that varies from person to person bit is true in general.) Also, cops and firefighters have...

No, we follow our basic training. We DO NOT enter an unsafe scene. Attending a COVID-19 pt without MEGG (mask, eye protection, gown, and gloves) is an UNSAFE scene. Universal Precautions work well but only at all when used universally. Would you ever enter a burning structure without SCBA...

I agree with you whole-heartedly. The suggestion of reusing N95s and gowns is just plain irresponsible. The better solution for gowns is buying launder-able cloth long-sleeve scrubs, chef coats and aprons, or rain gear. Did the mental midgets who made those suggestion never hear of Universal...

My current department is indeed telling use to put used single-use disposable gowns in paper bag on scene and re-use them. Pretty much ditto for used N95 masks if we do not "THINK" the patient has COVID. Since when do we use our gut feel for our scene-safe determination?

I guess I am so old that I remember when Universal Precautions were, well, universal. That has kept me well for almost 20 years through hep-C, AIDS/HIV, Swine Flu, and ebola. Now "my" current service is all upset that I say, no, reusing gowns and much more so N95 masks is not an acceptable...