# Scene safety scenario



## Epi-do (Oct 7, 2009)

You are dispatched to the address of a residence where an elderly gentleman lives with his 2-3 sons. The sons are well known to law enforcement. While juveniles, they have done several armed robberies, and lately their bad behavior continues to escalate. They are known to be armed and will shoot at absolutely any vehicle with flashing lights and a siren. The last couple times LEOs have been to the residence, the boys have bailed out windows and hid in an empty house across the street, or in the attic of their residence.

All FD/EMS personnel have been instructed to never approach this address until LEOs have cleared the scene. You have a note included on the dispatch screen of your MDT that states a glass shelf has fallen on your patient, he is unable to get up, and to enter through the back of the house.

Multiple LEOs arrive at the house, and you creep up slowly, until you can see the back yard of the residence through other houses, but are still safely back from the scene. You see PD in the back yard with weapons drawn, and they eventually make entry into the house.

A short time later, dispatch advises you that PD states you are cleared to enter the house, but go through the back door. As you pull up outside the address, you can see a single flashlight moving around on the second story of the house and 1-2 lights have been turned on in various rooms. An LEO opens the front door of the house and indicates he wants you to enter through the front door, rather than through the back. He tells you the patient is to the right, through the dining room, and in the bathroom at the end of a hallway. The bathroom you patient is in is directly in front of you. There is a windowless laundry room to your left and the door to the garage is to your right. The actual garage door to the outside is closed for the night. There is a pit bull in the garage.

You enter the house, as directed by the LEO, and as you do, 2-3 officers come around the corner from the back of the house, and head up the staircase, directly in front of you, after initially entering the home. They have their weapons drawn, one of them has a rifle, and it appears as if they are still sweeping the upstairs of the house.

So, what do you do? Do you go ahead and make contact with your patient or do you back out of the house and let PD know you will come back in once they have completed what they are doing upstairs? Do you do something completely different? Does the condition of the patient come into play in your decision making?


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## Dominion (Oct 7, 2009)

If I'm already entering and they're still not cleared I'm going back to my truck, staging again and contacting supervisors on recorded lines as I was just sent into an unsafe scene.  How could I trust those police officers again in a similar situation.  My safety, the safety of my partner, the safety of bystanders, and finally I'll consider the patient.


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## MrBrown (Oct 7, 2009)

Wait for them to finish upstairs.


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## Akulahawk (Oct 7, 2009)

If they're still sweeping the upstairs, the scene isn't secure. I'm not working/functioning as a Tactical (armed) Medic... so I will exit that scene ASAP, contact a supervisor or dispatch on a recorded line, advise that I was sent into an unsecured scene and will stage/return when the scene is secure.


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## DV_EMT (Oct 7, 2009)

lol... pull out my own gun and cover my partner while he gets the pt. B)



...but in all seriousness... just wait for LEO. Thats the best move


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## mycrofft (Oct 7, 2009)

*Trust your spider sense.*

Very good scenario, tactical situations are *always* confused and individuals will wave you in due to their sense of urgency rather than a full knowledge of "what's up". The thing to remember is you are in or out. If they wave you out, go back where it is safe  (their line, your vehicle), don't waffle and stand on the front porch unless LE tells you to specifically. If what they are telling you and doing is spooking you, go back to your vehicle. Hopefully they have an entry control point, tactical command spot, Home Base or whatever they call it, but if you are physically next to the scene boss, you can get better info faster.

Oh, and, with bad guys running around, lock your vehicle, ok?


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## Mountain Res-Q (Oct 7, 2009)

Dominion stated it perfectly.  Get the heck out of there, return to the unit, contact dispatch and then the supervisor and I want the supervisor to respond.  Record time and DOCUMENT the heck out of it.  Simply put... if the LEOs have weapons drawn then the scene is NOT safe...  not safe for them (but that is their duty they have accepted) and not safe for unarmed EMS or Fire.

Oh... and inform the ranking LEO on scene of the situation if you able to do so... they need to know that there was a screw up along the line; that the officers desire to get the patient care before the scene was 100% secure endangered more lives.


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## fortsmithman (Oct 7, 2009)

I and the other members of our crew (we have a crew of 3) and wait in the rig at the end of the block and wait to be waved in after the scene has been secured.  Till then we sitting at the end of the block.


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## CollegeBoy (Oct 7, 2009)

Akulahawk said:


> If they're still sweeping the upstairs, the scene isn't secure. I'm not working/functioning as a Tactical (armed) Medic... so I will exit that scene ASAP, contact a supervisor or dispatch on a recorded line, advise that I was sent into an unsecured scene and will stage/return when the scene is secure.



Agreed, there is no way I would enter a possibly unsafe scene. The best thing to do in this case is to make dispatch aware of the situation and get out of Dodge. Preferably I never would have entered Dodge in the first place.


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## Epi-do (Oct 7, 2009)

If I had been given this scenario, I would have said the same thing as everyone else. However, it is amazing how we can sometimes get tunnel vision if we are not careful.

This was one of my runs last shift. Even though I know what we "should" have done, that wasn't what we actually did. Instead, we went ahead and entered the home.

The old guy wasn't hurt at all. Even though the shelf had fallen, he managed to move and avoid it. However, that caused him to fall and he couldn't get back up without assistance. He had no cuts from the broken glass and denied having any other complaints of any type. We helped him back into his chair and made sure he had a friend/neighbor on the way to help him clean up the mess. The entire time we were with the gentleman, there was an officer with us.

It wasn't until after the fact, when we were back in our truck and talking about what had just happened that we said, "Boy, that was really stupid on our part!" We got back to station and notified our officer of the incident. I was asked to send an email up to our battalion chief, so he could pass it along and make sure something similar doesn't happen again.

So, basically, I just wanted to share this story to remind everyone to not get tunnel vision. Make sure you stop and do the things you say you would do, if you were presented with a similar situation as a scenario.

As an added note, just to make our mistake in judgment seem even more stupid, today we had about 10 cop cars show up in the parking lot at the fire house. They were headed over to stake out the house in hopes of arresting one of the boys on a felony warrant. It is just a matter of time before something really bad happens over there. There have been some armed robberies in the area and the boys match the descriptions and one of them has threatened to shoot up an officer's house.


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## Summit (Oct 7, 2009)




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## medichopeful (Oct 7, 2009)

Epi-do said:


> You are dispatched to the address of a residence where an elderly gentleman lives with his 2-3 sons. The sons are well known to law enforcement. While juveniles, they have done several armed robberies, and lately their bad behavior continues to escalate. They are known to be armed and will shoot at absolutely any vehicle with flashing lights and a siren. The last couple times LEOs have been to the residence, the boys have bailed out windows and hid in an empty house across the street, or in the attic of their residence.
> 
> All FD/EMS personnel have been instructed to never approach this address until LEOs have cleared the scene. You have a note included on the dispatch screen of your MDT that states a glass shelf has fallen on your patient, he is unable to get up, and to enter through the back of the house.
> 
> ...



Personally, I would get out of the house ASAP.  I would not try to move the patient, as with the information you have given, I would not know what the condition of him was.  Does he have a spine injury?


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## HotelCo (Oct 13, 2009)

Leave.If they're still going around the house with weapons drawn, it's obvious to me that they haven't cleared the house.Leave and wait until they have cleared the home completely.


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