First Response Unit: Incoming ambulance from XXXX on Med B
... 1 minute of awkward silence
First Response Unit: Dispatch from XXXX, can you dispatch an ambulance to our location.
My favorite one of those was when we were working standby at a major outdoor concert and were checking on drunk students to make sure they weren't so drunk we needed to actually do something about it.
College Student: *Barfs on floor*
Crew Chief: Have you been drinking today? *Looks at...
Definitely think that having a map book as a backup is a necessity, but that a GPS is significantly easier in many situations.
The other thing that I think is really helpful is familiarity with your response area. Obviously, if you have a big area to cover there's no way you can know it all...
"xxxx to xxx, the alarm is from burned popcorn in the break room. You guys can cancel, I'll be resetting the alarm."
"xxx copies burned popcorn. Engine X, Engine Y, Ladder Z, you are clear to return to quarters. xxxx, let me know when you've got it reset."
xxxx was an on-scene campus "fire"...
One good option for cheap, thin gloves would be military surplus glove liners. They make them in polypro and in a wool/polypro blend and in a couple of different thicknesses. If you have a surplus store near you, it might be worth checking out.
I think I'm just going to look into my county's SAR team, since I think they help with this kind of thing also, and since I almost joined them last year anyway.
Thanks for the info everyone!
Anybody know of good ways to get involved and help out or of places that are looking for EMT volunteers to help? I don't think my agency is doing anything beyond our immediate location (Ithaca, NY). I'm definitely interested in helping out where it's needed, I just have no idea how to since I've...
I'm with a collegiate EMS agency and we use polos. Navy blue, with the squad patch on the left shoulder, EMT patch on the right shoulder (if a member has earned it), and the squad logo embroidered on the left front. On the back, we have screen printed the name of our school and EMS below it in...
We were told in our service (we also use EMSCharts) to put "Unresponsive" or something to that effect if the patient is unresponsive and cannot tell us a chief complaint.
We were also told that we could, in some cases, summarize what the patient would have told us, if they were capable. So...
We use the StatPacks BackUp as our primary bag (we're BLS first-response). We have their O2 module and a couple of their "Small Universal" modules in ours to help keep things organized.
If you have any questions about how much we manage to fit in, let me know, I'd be happy to help!
Links...
Shouldn't be too difficult to do once you have another state's license/certification. New York generally accepts other states for reciprocity, so it should just be a matter of filling out the right paperwork.
Here's the state's website with information about reciprocity...