Cancelling ambulance and or fire.

[mcsap]

If there is a call in which someone determines that at Ambulance/Medic/FD is needed can an arriving police officer on the scene advise to cancel ?

We have such an issue that our dispatch automatically sends fire and Ems for any vehicle that goes off of the road , is overturned or involving a motorcycle. Generally, I don't have a problem with that BUT , there are many times that we arrive first ( all of our nightime Fire/EMS are volunteers) and can easily assess the scene to determine if any other equipment is needed.

We have tried to tell them that if we cancel , and they continue in running hot and in someway get into a crash, they could be RESPONSIBLE. Doesn't seem to phase them much.

[MDEMT280]

It's been a while since I sat behind the radio, so policy may have changed. As a field responder, if dispatch says cancel, I will gladly cancel. I have better things to be doing, like eating, sleeping, or watching TV. :D

Of course, nobody wants to be responsible for canceling EMS/FD if it really was needed. Field units may be advised to "proceed in with caution" (as opposed to me normally driving with reckless abandon???) if there's a potential that services won't be needed, but some dispatchers just won't say the "c" word (cancel!). I've been told, "Unit X, be advised, Unit Y is on scene." Yeah, so... um... do you want me to keep going, or what?

More often than not, however, it works one of three ways:

1) 911 gets a call back from the caller advising to cancel, and dispatch advises us to proceed in with caution for a possible refusal of service. Barring very extenuating circumstances (major disasters or shortages of units), we won't cancel just on the caller's request.

2) PD gets on scene, advises that services are not needed and that we can cancel. For example, a motor vehicle crash without injuries, patient gone on arrival, false call, etc. In that case, since an emergency responder is there, we will cancel. (We typically do NOT cancel for Joe Bob Firefighter calling in on his cell phone telling us one thing or another, as we can't really verify Joe Bob's identity over the phone.)

3) PD gets on scene and needs us or isn't sure. We continue in, sometimes PD gives patient updates, sometimes they don't. Sometimes police dispatch relays to fire, sometimes they don't. Sometimes fire dispatch relays to the ambulances, sometimes they don't. No matter what, we're still coming.

Like I said, I would love to cancel. Sometimes we just don't get the word in time (or at all), or sometimes asinine policy keeps a whole parade going. Might be something worth bringing up with your comm center to see if the responders are actually getting the word to cancel, too.

[stl209]

Often our dispatch doesn't always advise Fire/Ems that we do not need them. A recent case, we (PD) arrive on scene for a passed out person. It turns out to be a homeless person sleeping, before Fire/EMS arrive, we wake the person. We then disregard Fire/EMS and run the individual. The person comes back with mulitple warrants (22). We cuff the subject up and are ready to transport when both Fire and EMS arrive on scene. They look at us with disbelief, as if we've done something wrong.

...So much for PD being able to disregard Fire and EMS.

[Mike Romeo]

If there is a call in which someone determines that at Ambulance/Medic/FD is needed can an arriving police officer on the scene advise to cancel?

Our city fire and/or medics run code to ANY call of service, period. I've arrived on quite a few case of which I've informed Communicatioins to wave them off. Our EOC is a combined Police and Fire, so the information IS relayed to them. Fire and EMS don't care. They will keep rolling until they reach the scene before they disengage and return home.

I have yet to figure out why.

[troysig]

I know in AL that if dispatch calls out resuce to anything, only an EMT, Paramedic, Nurse, or an MD can cancel an Ambulance, But that is hardly the case. Alot of Police Officers, Firefighters cancel them all the time.

[greenlead]

3) PD gets on scene and needs us or isn't sure. We continue in, sometimes PD gives patient updates, sometimes they don't. Sometimes police dispatch relays to fire, sometimes they don't. Sometimes fire dispatch relays to the ambulances, sometimes they don't. No matter what, we're still coming.

I have been kind of wondering about this. How useful are patient updates? I don't want to tie up the air with "Well, now he's turning blue" if it isn't useful. Ambulances and fire trucks can only drive so fast, and I don't want to add undue stress. I've heard too many horror stories about officers getting on the air to scream "Hurry up that ambulance" two or three times.

[MDEMT280]

I have been kind of wondering about this. How useful are patient updates? I don't want to tie up the air with "Well, now he's turning blue" if it isn't useful. Ambulances and fire trucks can only drive so fast, and I don't want to add undue stress. I've heard too many horror stories about officers getting on the air to scream "Hurry up that ambulance" two or three times.

I personally like an update if the patient's condition is dramatically different from what it was dispatched as, or if the patient begins to go downhill real quick. Example: If a patient goes unconscious or into cardiac arrest, I would like to know, so we can get additional help rolling and change our game plan. Likewise, if it was supposed to be a cardiac arrest, it's good to know if it's not.

Similar thinking can be applied to fire and rescue calls. If dispatched for a car fire, and it turns out to be a car on fire in an attached garage, that changes the whole response. A car accident is one thing, a car off of a bridge and upside-down in a river is another thing entirely. The sooner specialized resources can get moving, the better.

Remember, information is more useful than "hurry up!" If the patient is bad off, tell me how or why he's bad off. You don't need to use medical terms. "Turning blue," "blood spurting everywhere," and "can't move his legs" are very descriptive, and they give me more of an idea what I'm going to encounter. It might not change my driving since, like you said, we can only go so fast. But it can get additional resources moving, and make sure that we grab the right equipment right off the bat when we arrive.

I'm not saying you all need to be fire, EMS and dispatchers too. However, it might be worth seeing what different response profiles look for your fire and EMS where you are. Sometimes, a matter of wording changes a response profile greatly. Examples where I am: Trouble breathing gets a medic unit, whereas ineffective breathing gets a medic unit, supervisor, and fire company for manpower. An appliance on fire in a house gets two fire engines, whereas anything OTHER THAN an appliance on fire in a house (including a car in an attached garage) gets a full assignment of four engines, a ladder company, chief, etc.

Oh, yes, and one more update I really, REALLY like: corrected location. Please, please, PLEASE for the love of Pete, if you find the call at a location other than the dispatched one, let us know! We'd like to come and play, too! :D





... wow, do I talk too much?

[BlueKnight901]

Our policy at dispatch is that our officers are not medical responders and due to that can not cancel medical units responding. The only persons who can are firefighters or other EMT's. They feel that an officer may not see certain signs of illness because he or she is not a trained medic. So when an officer advises to cancel medics we just have to ignore them. Other departments in the area do cancel when their officers/deputies advise to.

[wcso234]

I cancel them only when Im 100% sure that they are not needed. If a call comes in the 2 vehicles have hit head on and there are body parts laying about the roadway and I get there and there is a vehicle that bumped another in the rear, then I will cancel. But if Im in doubt then I let them continue on.
I only had one squad that constantly continued on. I had a talk with them and advised them that while I appreciated them they were tying up my accident scene and it will hurt me deeply for them to continue doing this because I would be forced to charge them with Improper Stopping on the Highway. I told them that the judge may throw it out but that they would have to take a day off work to appear.
Im not an butthead but this was after numerous times of one ambulance, one crash truck, and 5 or 6 POV's at a MINOR MVC

[sbrad]

Our policy at dispatch is that our officers are not medical responders and due to that can not cancel medical units responding. The only persons who can are firefighters or other EMT's. They feel that an officer may not see certain signs of illness because he or she is not a trained medic. So when an officer advises to cancel medics we just have to ignore them. Other departments in the area do cancel when their officers/deputies advise to.

That's just retarded.

If we cancel a firetruck they are just as happy to turn around and go back to bed/playing their Xbox/go back to dinner...or whatever it is they were doing before dispatch inconvenienced them.

[maz]

Where I dispatch it is policy that a Police Officer on scene CANNOT cancel a fire/ems unit. They can only update the responding personnel of what they have, for example no injuries, no fire, false alarm etc. It just falls into the whole liability thing ya know? If a Police Officer pulls up on scene and says there is no injuries here at this MVA cancel EMS and EMS does cancel and the patient actually had internal bleeding but no obvious signs of trauma, to me that is big time negligence. I dunno of any police officers who would want to be dragged into that lawsuit. Why not play it safe and just give an update to responding personnel and let them cancel themselves if needed. If they get in an accident on the way its on them not the police officer. You advised them that its minor injuries or no injuries, they chose to keep reponding hot so its on them not the officer. Its just how our County Dispatch works

[maz]

Oh yeah also we are a very rural county where everyone is volunteer, if that sheds more light

[sbrad]

Oh yeah also we are a very rural county where everyone is volunteer, if that sheds more light

It does shed a lot of light on it.
You guys don't have anything to do so why trust the word of an officer when he says "this cat doesn't want to go to the hospital"? Especially when it means you get to keep blowing through traffic with your little lights going while you're leaning out the window yelling "wooooooooo".

Out of curiosity...you mentioned someone having internal injuries and his death being blamed on a police officer. Do you carry the equipment around in your hand-me-down firetruck to diagnose internal injuries?







Ok. Sorry. Too much?

[emt_hound]

Yeah, well the cops keep ignoring me too when I tell 'em this cat doesn't want to go to jail...

[maz]

I'm a dispatcher, not a police officer, EMS, or firefighter. The point I was trying to make is that sometimes there are internal injuries that cannot be detected by just looking at someone. Does a police officer take the blood pressure of a patient or the pulse before saying no injuries? The point I was trying to make is that EMS should show up and if the patient does not want to go to the hospital than in our county they sign a Refused Medical Attention form. This takes liability off of everyone, takes it off the EMS and Police.

And we don't have Hand Me Down firetrucks or anything in our county. I said we were rural, not poor. Our Firehouses and EMS buildings are loaded with brand new useless equipment, the only reason why they have it is because they have the money, not because they need it