Imagine for a moment that you are ill and call for an ambulance.
Imagine calling for that ambulance 10 times in 3 days and the medics never arrive- and that YOU- the ill person- is asked to walk TO the ambulance in 15-inches of snow
That's what happened recently in Pittsburgh- according to this story from Dave Statter's STATTER 9-1-1 Web page.
The lazy-assed medics never did go to the sick man's residence and the man died.
Can you say 'lawsuit?'
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5 comments:
So rather than just go to the hospital after the first 5 attempts, they continue to wait and wait while ambulance after ambulance gets stuck. Hello? You can't depend on the world to help if the weather is crap.
I'm not defending what happened, but according to the news stories, this was over a 3 day period. If it was so urgent, why not just go himself?
As a local EMS provider I was shocked by this story and cannot understand why in the world the crew(s) dispatched to this individual continued to not GET OUT of their trucks and GO TO the patient. I've had my truck stuck more than once in ridiculous amounts of snow and have still found a way to treat or transport our patients. You can still get to them or you to them in one way or another. If there were no other option they could have rigged together a spine board and slid the patient to their truck. That's just one option. There's always a way. You just have to use a little common sense and no matter how complacent you may feel some days remember why we're here. To serve the public and provide them the care they need when they call us. Whether we deem it an emergency or not. To them it is.
Whether or not the said individual was a 'frequent runner' or a general pain in the rear he was clearly in a moment of need, called for help and received none. That's horrible.
What an embarrassment. Even if it was someone complaining of a stubbed toe I and my partner would find a way to get them transported if they were requesting to be.
I'm ashamed at the lack of compassion and effort displayed by these EMS providers. They make the rest of us look bad that actually do the job we signed up for.
Approx. 10 years ago my EMS partner and I were called to a large dairy barn fire during an ice storm. We arrived after the fire dept. had already laid multiple lines in the lane.We could not drive down the lane. The lane was 3,000 ft long.We parked our ambulance across the road and walked the lane to the milkhouse so we could set up for rehab. We carried a heart monitor, and an air bag and first in bag down those 3,000 ft.
By the way, my partner and I are women.
Shame on those paramedics for not wanting to brave the weather to do their job!
So you carried three pieces of equipment down 3,000 feet. Commendable. Did you happen to think about what would happen if you had to carry a patient back those 3,000 feet?
There is far more to this than the "lazy ass medic" meme that some seem to think explains it all. Ten calls, thirty hours, three ambulance responses. That tells me that there is more going on here than what the media has told us.
Like the fact that the Pittsburgh DPW had given up trying to clear paths for EMS. Or that the National Guard eventually had to send in Hummers to assist public safety in getting around. Or that medical control had spoken with the patient and determined that there was no life threatening emergency going on. Or that we don't even know exactly why the patient died. And on and on.
You can read more about the story at http://roguemedic.blogspot.com/
Or my blog for that matte.
Sometimes things that appear simple aren't.
TOTWTYTR-
As with 99% of things that happen in this world- we probably don't know the whole story.
That being said- I know that in 1975 when I willingly signed-on to be a city firefighter/EMT what that ultimate cost could be.
In FAR more dangerous conditions than snow- that potential cost I made willingly- without second thought actually.
So- on the face of the facts of this incident presented as they are- I stand by what I and some of these other fine commenters have volunteered:
Suck it up and DO-YOUR-JOB!!!
Peace-
Groucho
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