You Do Not Need An Ambulance...

[Sasha]

i disagree. that is system abuse, but its unintentional. theres a big difference in intent between the habitual offenders who call and ambulance to go get their pain meds refilled at 3am and granny who calls every tuesday night after murder she wrote because shes lonely. what isnt different is the fact that an ems unit is unavailable to service the people who actually need emergency medical services.

is it inconvienent? you bet it is. i cant count how many times ive run my butt off all day long and just gotten back to the house and gone to sleep only to be awoken to go doc a refusal from granny again becuase hse doesnt actually have a medical complaint.

thats what this business has become, but its not what its supposed to be. it says emergency medical services on the side of my truck.

How do you know when Murder She Wrote comes on?

 

[FF-EMT Diver]

Some people are not prepared to deal with the end of life issues of their elderly parents. Some parent/child relationships are so strained that the parent avoids letting family know how bad things have gotten, or the parent becomes so abusive or manipulative to the family caregiver that they finally just give up. It's very noble to say that we would take care of our family members, but until we have actually walked a mile in the shoes of that family member, we really can't determine what level of emotional cost is being paid by the family.

Very often what appears to be a callous or indifferent attitude of the family is based them distancing themselves from a very painful, emotional situation because they have no tools to deal with it. We do not teach members of our society how to deal with the end of life. We sell them on the idea that Mom will get much better care in the hands of professionals, trained to cope instead of watching you fumble and retch while attempting to change her diapers.

I wasn't referring to end of life situations rather those that simply need the simplest of assistance and you go in and there's 2-6 able-bodied people standing there that simply do not want to quit watching TV.

 

[BossyCow]

I wasn't referring to end of life situations rather those that simply need the simplest of assistance and you go in and there's 2-6 able-bodied people standing there that simply do not want to quit watching TV.

Again, we are taught to distance ourselves and leave it to 'the professionals'.

 

[Sasha]

Again, we are taught to distance ourselves and leave it to 'the professionals'.

I would really hate to be on the recieving end of that. If Im dying, I want my family to be there for me, and to know Im loved. Not be distanced from like Im some kind of mental burden.

 

[flhtci01]

Here's one...

You are a nurse in the ER and the baby is starting to crown. :huh:

 

[TransportJockey]

Here's one...

You are a nurse in the ER and the baby is starting to crown. :huh:

please tell me you're joking

 

[flhtci01]

please tell me you're joking

Wish I was. It was from a small country hospital that had no OB unit. They asked our ETA when I told them 12-15 minutes. They said they would call back. Never did, I think they weere suddenly busy. :lol:

 

[JSL22]

Reading through this, I'm pretty sure I have had at least one of every call mentioned if not multiples of them.

You do not need an ambulance if your child brings home and eats some "Strange" candy on Halloween. Turns out they were "Maryjanes" and the parents had never heard of them <_<

 

[jordanfstop]

You don't need an ambulance if you can walk to one.

 

[mdkemt]

Personally I love when the 30+ females cause for vag bleeding and it is there period!

 

[captainbeatty]

We've had a couple I'd like to share.
I wasn't on this one, but I heard the dispach go out.
" Attention xxx suqad, respond to 1234 xxxxx Road, lady slammed her thumb in a car door,: and now it hurts.:excl:"

In the last month, I've been on two calls for paople with abdominal pain who went to the ER, got tired of sitting in the waiting room, and drove home (about a 20 minute trip), and then called 911 to go back to the ER. One got right in, because the medic started an iv, but the other was a "candidate for triage", and went right back in the waiting room.

 

[VentMedic]

There are many more people that do drive themselves to the hospital who should have called for an ambulance. Or, they wait too long. Or, as in the case of the elderly, they don't want to be a bother and die alone in their house where no one will ever know how long they suffered. Chances are, you will not see these patients but will continue to complain about those you do. Unfortunately, it is the law biding honest good citizen that only wants to do right that will listen to you and not call an ambulance so not to bother you and will die of an aneurysm or MI.

Not everyone is out to waste your time or be a bother to EMS.

Another article:
Many Utahns refuse to ride in ambulance

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705273784,00.html

http://deseretnews.com/user/comments/1,5143,705273784,00.html

You do not need an ambulance if your child brings home and eats some "Strange" candy on Halloween. Turns out they were "Maryjanes" and the parents had never heard of them <_<

I also would be extremely upset if my kid ate drugs given to him from a stranger. I would dare any EMT to not transport a child that took drugs unknowingly and was acting different enough for a parent to call an ambulance.

 

[BossyCow]

Um Vent.. reality check here.. did you see the name of the forum? Its humor..

 

[Second]

or how about

pt. - all i wanted was my blood sugar checked.
EMT - sign here

 

[VentMedic]

Um Vent.. reality check here.. did you see the name of the forum? Its humor..

Humor is okay. But bashing patients can cross the lline. Not everyone that happens onto this site is going to have the same sense of humor.

If you just hit the quick link to today's post, you are not going to see the category.

 

[lightsandsirens5]

How about this one? Naturally, we were dispatched at something like 2 or 3 in the morning for it.

EMS - "Hi there! What's going on tonight?"
Pt. - "I feel funny."
EMS - "What were you doing when this started?"
Pt. - "Smokin' some weed."
EMS - "Okaaayyyy. Have you ever done this before?"
Pt. - "Oh yah, all the time."
EMS - "And the way you are feeling tonight is different from previous times how?"
Pt. - "It isn't any different. I just want to go to the hospital."
EMS - "And why do you want to go?"
Pt. - "Because I feel funny."

.....EMS - "What were you doing when this started?"
Pt. - "Smokin' some weed."
EMS - "Okaaayyyy. Have you ever done this before?"
Pt. - "Oh yah, all the time."
EMS - "And the way you are feeling tonight is different from previous times how?"
Pt. - "It isn't any different. I just want to go to the hospital."
EMS - "And why do you want to go?"
Pt. - "Because I feel funny."
EMS - "What were you doing when this started?"
Pt. - "Smokin' some weed."
EMS - "Okaaayyyy. Have you ever done this before?"
Pt. - "Oh yah, all the time."
EMS - "And the way you are feeling tonight is different from previous times how?"
Pt. - "It isn't any different. I just want to go to the hospital."
EMS - "And why do you want to go?"
Pt. - "Because I feel funny.

and so on and so on....

Dont you love weed? It makes so many great pts.

 

[ChristinaM]

Literally had a call this past weekend "for a baby that wont stop crying". I replied that Daddy 911 was enroute.

We had the same call recently.. a child about 18 months old.. woke up at about 0300 crying and wouldn't stop. We examined the child and found absolutely nothing wrong. We told the mother she may have had a nightmare and asked her if she tried to distract the child with a favorite toy, drink or cartoon, to which she stated she had not (duh). To our credit, we had the child laughing before we left.

I asked my partner if we had a new public service campaign going on -

"Is your child inconsolable, making you crazy, can't sleep at night? Call 911 for assistance!>"

 

[ChristinaM]

Amen to that, it gets very tedious indeed. We were called to an assisted living facility by a hospice nurse for a patient that had increasing dementia that she wanted evaluated for placement in a skilled nursing facility and he should have been transported by non-emergency stretcher transport. While we were wasting our time on that call we had a child drowning and a GSW within minutes of each other come out in our zone and other units had to run into our zone to run the calls. We were furious.

 

[ChristinaM]

Literally had a call this past weekend "for a baby that wont stop crying". I replied that Daddy 911 was enroute.

thought so. get a little puke on your boots and we'll see.

you'll be just as jaded as the rest of us in no time......

i disagree. that is system abuse, but its unintentional. theres a big difference in intent between the habitual offenders who call and ambulance to go get their pain meds refilled at 3am and granny who calls every tuesday night after murder she wrote because shes lonely. what isnt different is the fact that an ems unit is unavailable to service the people who actually need emergency medical services.

is it inconvienent? you bet it is. i cant count how many times ive run my butt off all day long and just gotten back to the house and gone to sleep only to be awoken to go doc a refusal from granny again becuase hse doesnt actually have a medical complaint.

thats what this business has become, but its not what its supposed to be. it says emergency medical services on the side of my truck.

In the county in which I work we are a divided system that works together we have fire and we have EMS and we co-respond to calls. If the call is deemed a public assist call, like someone just needing help up off the floor, fire initially responds and then calls us if necessary.

If the call is a medical one and we get on scene before fire, we cancel them unless it is deemed they are needed for a very large patient, etc.

We are supposedly merging our two systems and there is much controversy at the moment.

 

[Illini_emt]

OH my favorite!!!

Tones Drop
Dispatch: 17-Ambulance-1 Code Responce, Report to XXXXNorth XXXXEast Rd for 85F not breathing.

Upon arrival family crying, Son doing directed CPR from dispatcher. We take over Rookie does his first comi tube, we put her on the cot, attach the AED, start out the door, Son says "Please save her, we cant live without her, and oh by the way heres her medical records." Rookie Skims through it in route, pops up front, Hey Bob whats this?"

My Response, "A DNR!"