# Headphones in ambulance



## Medic112 (Sep 5, 2013)

Hello,

in my country it is 'til this point not seen to wear headphones in an ambulance.
What are the experiences of these readers of these systems.

Like I see it the system would be capable of doing these things:
- direct communication between the driver / medic in the front and the driver / medic in the back;
- communication with two digital radio's (European TETRA);
- passive noise reduction (for the sirens);
- in the drivers compartiment: 2 full headphones
- in the back: 1 half headphone

It would be great if these apparatus could work wireless, and also outside (not to far) in the car.

Thanks for reading this question!

Medic112


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## mycrofft (Sep 5, 2013)

Headsets are worn in helicopters here. 
Auscultating the patient is impossible with current equipment. Same for hearing any history or complaints from the patient.
Make for aweome stereo though.


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## Achilles (Sep 6, 2013)

We have them for the fire trucks. We have an air boat with wireless system.


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## Handsome Robb (Sep 6, 2013)

I wish we had them in the cab for driving code. My ears ring forever after busy shifts. Supposedly our new units were hitting the 130-140 dB range when we hit the airhorns. Pretty ridiculous in my opinion but they did remedy the situation with a boatload of dynamat. 

I don't see them being a good idea in the pt compartment. I have a hard enough time hearing patients going down the road with the A/C on as it is. As far as communicating with my partner. It's not difficult to talk back and forth through the pass through.


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## DesertMedic66 (Sep 6, 2013)

We have a couple of employees who bought their own headsets and wear them in the unit. They connect to the units radio so you can only hear dispatch and other radio traffic. You can't hear anything that your partner says tho. All the fire departments here have the headsets.


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## rmabrey (Sep 6, 2013)

Were "told" that by law, we can't wear ear plugs while driving. Yet a fire based ambulance service in town wears headsets in their buses. 

I think somebody is feeding me a line, especially since I may or may not wear noise canceling surefire earplugs.


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## Medic112 (Sep 9, 2013)

I my country even deaf people ca


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## Medic112 (Sep 9, 2013)

I my country even deaf people can ride a car, so a headphone (to protect your hearing) can't be forbidden.

I hear David Clark has different systems to use in Fire and ambulance trucks.

Anyone has experience with these?

thx


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## NomadicMedic (Sep 9, 2013)

Medic112 said:


> I my country even deaf people can ride a car, so a headphone (to protect your hearing) can't be forbidden.
> 
> I hear David Clark has different systems to use in Fire and ambulance trucks.
> 
> ...



Ye, I've also used the wireless Firecom system. Love it. http://www.firecom.com/products/


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## Medic112 (Sep 16, 2013)

To clear all mis-understandings (and sorry for my bad english) I've drawn an scetch.


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## TheLocalMedic (Sep 22, 2013)

Some ambulance services where I work use headsets in the front.  Not many though.  I don't think a headset in the back is necessary, I can always speak louder to be heard by my partner while he is driving, and even when we are transporting code 3 the siren isn't loud enough to down me out.


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## ffemt8978 (Sep 22, 2013)

Here's a thought about wearing headphones in the back of the ambulance...

How are you going to hear your patient who may not be speaking very loud when answering your questions or complaining of something?


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## STXmedic (Sep 22, 2013)

ffemt8978 said:


> Here's a thought about wearing headphones in the back of the ambulance...
> 
> How are you going to hear your patient who may not be speaking very loud when answering your questions or complaining of something?



Pretty easily when you have the headphones with one ear piece. 

I've used them at my old PT gig, and I was pretty fond of them. Our units were huge, though. It was near impossible to effectively communicate from the front to the back without getting out of your seat, walking to the window, and sticking your head through. 

In a standard size ambulance, they're probably not necessary.


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## Medic112 (Oct 27, 2013)

The problem seems to be to connect the digital radio's to the gateway.
Seems to be normally the analogue two-radio's.

Suggestions?

Cheers,

Medic112


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## JDEMT535 (Oct 31, 2013)

Honestly I highly disagree with having headsets in ambulances. I know many firedepartments have them in their fire trucks but that is a completely different ballgame. In an ambulance you always have a patient and if youre wearing a headset its not going to help the patient at all and then communication goes out the window completely. When I drive I like to be able to hear everything thats going on including the sirens because what happens if your siren turns off and you approach and intersection and then you become completely endangered and youre endangering your crew. At the same time I have two radios in the front a dispatch and a county wide channel and sometimes I have a third radio on for a hospital notification, having all 3 of those in the headset would make me go crazy but without a headset its really easy to just adjust the volumes on the radios. I wouldn't recommend having headsets, if the sirens are too loud roll up the windows.


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## Handsome Robb (Nov 3, 2013)

I most definitely don't always have a patient in my ambulance.

My ears ring after a day of constant emergent driving and I drive code with the windows up.


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## Tigger (Nov 3, 2013)

Robb said:


> I most definitely don't always have a patient in my ambulance.
> 
> My ears ring after a day of constant emergent driving and I drive code with the windows up.



What he said.

The headsets are not so muffling that you couldn't hear the siren. As for radios, the setups I have seen usually only one radio hooked up to the headset at a time. You could either switch radio inputs or just pick up the hand mic. 

We have three radios in the cab and I would love them, would probably make hearing them quite a bit easier.


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## usalsfyre (Nov 3, 2013)

Ummm...we wear helmets or headsets in air medical and no one seems to die due to lack of hearing.

Most rear headsets only have one ear cup. Most headsets in the front have slits cut so you can still hear road noise but it's muffled. 

I'm curious how a fire truck would be a different ball game? The last FD I worked for you ended up juggling three radios with headsets. You made it work.


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## Handsome Robb (Nov 4, 2013)

I will agree that if I had to listen to our primary, secondary then hospital channels in my head I'd probably go nuts but our radio channels never stop talking anyways so I guess it wouldn't be a huge change.


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## Medic112 (Dec 5, 2013)

One of the two radio's is just an verification and emergency channel. We just give back the digitaly sent adress to our dispatch so they can confirm. So actually it's a channel with maximum 11 cars sending their verification or ask for assistance or help.

The other channel is a bit bussier but we normally work with digital automatic statusverification. Only the message 'patient brought to ... hospital' is given verbally.

I hope I make myself clear in English.


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## emt11 (Dec 5, 2013)

JDEMT535 said:


> Honestly I highly disagree with having headsets in ambulances. I know many firedepartments have them in their fire trucks but that is a completely different ballgame. In an ambulance you always have a patient and if youre wearing a headset its not going to help the patient at all and then communication goes out the window completely. When I drive I like to be able to hear everything thats going on including the sirens because what happens if your siren turns off and you approach and intersection and then you become completely endangered and youre endangering your crew. At the same time I have two radios in the front a dispatch and a county wide channel and sometimes I have a third radio on for a hospital notification, having all 3 of those in the headset would make me go crazy but without a headset its really easy to just adjust the volumes on the radios. I wouldn't recommend having headsets, if the sirens are too loud roll up the windows.




They would be nice in our trucks as whoever installed our sirens decided for whatever reason to face them backwards :wacko:


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## richardharris908 (Dec 7, 2013)

Sounds good!!!


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## dixie_flatline (Jan 8, 2014)

I'm in a Fire Dept, and we have headsets on all of our apparatus (Engines, Trucks, Squad, Ambos).  The new squad even has a wireless system so the backers can talk to driver and clearly direct him in tight spaces without having to shout and wildly wave arms.

On the ambo, we wear the headsets as a matter of course when responding to calls.  It's easier to hear your partner, you can PTT to transmit to dispatch, and it does a great job of cutting down (but not eliminating) the road noise.

After patient contact we don't really wear them. They're big and a bit bulky, and the set in the back is dual-ear cups, so not really conducive to patient care.  I think the new units with the wireless headsets might have a single cup configuration though, which I guess we could experiment with.


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