Headphones in ambulance

[emt11]

Honestly I highly disagree with having headsets in ambulances. I know many firedepartments have them in their fire trucks but that is a completely different ballgame. In an ambulance you always have a patient and if youre wearing a headset its not going to help the patient at all and then communication goes out the window completely. When I drive I like to be able to hear everything thats going on including the sirens because what happens if your siren turns off and you approach and intersection and then you become completely endangered and youre endangering your crew. At the same time I have two radios in the front a dispatch and a county wide channel and sometimes I have a third radio on for a hospital notification, having all 3 of those in the headset would make me go crazy but without a headset its really easy to just adjust the volumes on the radios. I wouldn't recommend having headsets, if the sirens are too loud roll up the windows.

They would be nice in our trucks as whoever installed our sirens decided for whatever reason to face them backwards :wacko:

 

[richardharris908]

Sounds good!!!

 

[dixie_flatline]

I'm in a Fire Dept, and we have headsets on all of our apparatus (Engines, Trucks, Squad, Ambos). The new squad even has a wireless system so the backers can talk to driver and clearly direct him in tight spaces without having to shout and wildly wave arms.

On the ambo, we wear the headsets as a matter of course when responding to calls. It's easier to hear your partner, you can PTT to transmit to dispatch, and it does a great job of cutting down (but not eliminating) the road noise.

After patient contact we don't really wear them. They're big and a bit bulky, and the set in the back is dual-ear cups, so not really conducive to patient care. I think the new units with the wireless headsets might have a single cup configuration though, which I guess we could experiment with.