EMS Pet Peeves

[akehl]

Thought I start a thread on pet peeves you have as an EMT/ Medic or with EMS...I will go first...

My biggest pet peeve is long on scene times. I run as a basic on an intermediate level crew and we always seem to be spending way to long on scene. Lets load and go and play in the ambulance. Granted we have a bunch of ppl on our squad who think they are doctors...but that is another story.

[MDEMT280]

Long hospital wait times! From time of call to time of arrival at hospital: 25 minutes. From time of arrival at hospital to the time patient is transferred: 3 hours.

I always ask my patients, "do you want to go to the hospital?" I'm going to start asking, "do you have a reservation there?"

[medic9338x]

Bull Sh*t calls transporting them to te hospital...and then waiting there long enough to order a pizza....

[Stan Switek]

How do you EMS guys feel about dispatchers who think you should respond to every call your are dispatched on & respond even when the police officers on the scene determine there are no injuries and cancel your response?

[rhiannon]

I don't see why you wouldn't respond to every call you are dispatched to. As far as an officer being on scene stating there are no injuries....what type of call would have come in to 911 stating there were injuries and then there really aren't. I can only think of a car accident where a passerby may think there were injuries and called to report. Even then, a police officer isn't in a position to make that determination if there is a need for transport or not. I am not sure how it is elsewhere, but here, a patient needs to sign off if they don't want to be transported. It is all about liability and I would rather show up to a call and have to leave without transporting, than to get called off a call by a police officer, only to find out that the person later was injured. An injury isn't always apparent immediately or to the the naked eye.

There are plenty of calls where I live, as far as fire service goes, where we get toned out to false alarms and the alarm company calls dispatch and states it was false. We still go to that location just to check it out.

That is sort of like saying that a cop shouldn't check out a 911 call, where the caller states nothing is wrong. Many times it is a kid playing on the phone or someone misdialed, but that one time it's not, will haunt you if you were the one who didn't show up.

[Stan Switek]

To answer you question, in some places when there is an accident & it is unknown if injuries, EMS is dispatched. While I responded to may injury accidents in my career, I also responded to many reported "injury accidents" where there were in fact no injuries. People simply say in good faith as they pass by, "I think there are injuries." Bingo. Injury accident gets dispatched. Officers arrive, find no injuries. happens every day. Your other comparisons are not valid.

[LA5150]

+1

Plenty of calls we are dispatched to, like accidents, stabbings, and shootings, turn out not to have any victims or injuries at all. I know that is hard to believe for those who don't actually respond in person to these types of calls, but it's true.

As an example, I have been to many "ambulance shooting" calls and many of them turn out not to have anyone hit by gunfire, or even any evidence of a shooting at all. If someone trips and falls while running away from fireworks, people will call 911 to report that someone has been shot and is down in the street. I've seen it happen.

A good many of these emergency calls are pranks, like the time I got a call that 20 people at a McDonald's had been shot. I cancelled FD once I arrived and saw that everyone was sitting inside with their Happy Meals and nothing was going on.

Maybe some agencies have a policy against allowing the police to cancel them for liability issues. I'm just glad that out here at least FD has more confidence in our judgement.

[MDEMT280]

Stan and LA summed it up very well.

Even then, a police officer isn't in a position to make that determination if there is a need for transport or not.

It's not the police making the determination, in most cases. It's the would-be patient themselves saying, "no, I really don't need an ambulance." Most of the time, if someone calls an ambulance themselves, they want to go to the hospital. A third-party caller cannot always be sure of the would-be patient's needs, but they want to help, so they request an ambulance anyway. It sometimes turns out that the patient is not injured at all, or they do not feel that they need treatment or transportation.

I typed up a bit more of a response, but I'm going to omit that for various reasons, not the least of which is: we went down this track in another thread, and I'd like to avoid the aggravation again.

[emt_hound]

aaa

[scott715us]

One of my bigger pet peeves was law enforcement failing to direct traffic away from the rest of the EMS/Fire crews on scene. Oh wait a minute, I am a cop... :D

Seriously, it happened all the time where I used to volunteer (before getting into LE). We would be loading pts onto stretchers or stretchers into ambulances with cars driving by about 1 - 2 ft away. I understand that a traffic report needs to be done, but trying to get the entire report done on scene is not the time (or place).

[MDEMT280]

One of my bigger pet peeves was law enforcement failing to direct traffic away from the rest of the EMS/Fire crews on scene. Oh wait a minute, I am a cop... :D

Seriously, it happened all the time where I used to volunteer (before getting into LE). We would be loading pts onto stretchers or stretchers into ambulances with cars driving by about 1 - 2 ft away. I understand that a traffic report needs to be done, but trying to get the entire report done on scene is not the time (or place).

Yep, but I would venture that 75%+ of our calls don't even have LE on them, and we still have to load patients. It's an issue about educating the public to slow the fark down, get their heads out of their rumps, and pay attention. :D

[JDS]

I worked EMS for several years. My pet peeve is when you are dispatched to an emergency call. You are inroute (lights & wipers) and the first reponders beat you there. SO far so good, then they get on the radio telling the medic to "step it up". I am already going as fast as I can, unless you cross train me as a pilot, be patient!

[princess1031]

One of my bigger pet peeves was law enforcement failing to direct traffic away from the rest of the EMS/Fire crews on scene. Oh wait a minute, I am a cop... :D

Seriously, it happened all the time where I used to volunteer (before getting into LE). We would be loading pts onto stretchers or stretchers into ambulances with cars driving by about 1 - 2 ft away. I understand that a traffic report needs to be done, but trying to get the entire report done on scene is not the time (or place).

I'm going to have to agree with you on this one. Especially with MVAs on the highway. I always feel like I'm going to be the next one up for a ride in ambulance!

[MBlova]

Waiting for Medics.

[paracop]

Pet peeves as a medic, how about an incompetent boss who hires morons,
doesn't stand up for thier employees,
won't get you the equiptment you need,
pushes all his responsibilities onto his senior staff,
and has nothing to do all day but dream of new ways to write employees up!

this week's new rule: no display of affection with family members when they come see you on shift, inculding spouse or kids. LOL!

Sorry....whew, I needed that.