# Ever Forget Your Stretcher???



## mm505 (Jun 17, 2012)

Don't know if covered or not, but how many times have you had that "deer in headlights" look when you opened the back doors of your truck and realized, "Hmmmm, isn't there supposed to be a stretcher back here?"


----------



## mycrofft (Jun 17, 2012)

Once I assumed my driver had loaded the ambulance litter after washing the unit, he assumed someone else would do it, and we wound up using a Ferno folding stretcher to move the pt.


----------



## MMiz (Jun 17, 2012)

Oxygen yes, stretcher no. I've heard many stories about units leaving stuff behind.


----------



## TransportJockey (Jun 17, 2012)

Me and my partner this last shift made it ten miles from the hopsital (a third of the way back to station) when we realized our gurney was in the hallway at the ER.. Heh the city crews gave us hell for it when I walked in to get it.


----------



## DrParasite (Jun 18, 2012)

me personally?  no.  

but i do know of several crews who did that once.  usually it only happens once in a career.  personally i can't understand how it happens, but it does happen.

radios, oxygen bottles, jump kits, the have all been left somewhere.  but a stretcher?


----------



## Tigger (Jun 18, 2012)

Last year a dispatcher leaving base came across an MVA right outside and called 911 and then our dispatch to send an ambulance. One of the on-duty dispatchers ran out, grabbed another guy that had just got off shift and hopped in the ambulance closet to the door to respond. Unfortunately that ambulance's stretcher was having maintenance done to it. Must have been kind of embarrassing when the city EMS showed up.


----------



## TransportJockey (Jun 18, 2012)

DrParasite said:


> me personally?  no.
> 
> but i do know of several crews who did that once.  usually it only happens once in a career.  personally i can't understand how it happens, but it does happen.
> 
> radios, oxygen bottles, jump kits, the have all been left somewhere.  but a stretcher?



I'd always said that too... but we were at hour 28 of a standing 24... My partner thought I loaded it, I thought she loaded it


----------



## firecoins (Jun 18, 2012)

Yes. I assumed my Partner returned it. He didn't.


----------



## bigbaldguy (Jun 18, 2012)

After 24 hours on duty nothing surprises me. I guess as long as there's not a patient in it your ok though.


----------



## Veneficus (Jun 18, 2012)

Isn't there some sort of convention where the person who rides the call writes the report and the person who drives returns the truck to service?

I have never worked anywhere that was not the case.


----------



## Epi-do (Jun 18, 2012)

I've never left the stretcher behind, but I have opened the back of the ambulance to find it missing because the off-going crew left it behind.


----------



## flhtci01 (Jun 20, 2012)

Not too long ago there was a neighboring BLS had a call.  After they got on scene, they requested a paramedic assist. When this happens one of our paramedics normally responds with a response vehicle.  A short time later we were paged out to the same address.  Enroute we were wondering what was happening because a BLS unit and paramedic were on the scene.  We loaded the patient in our rig and transported.  Later, we found out the BLS unit did not have a cot in it.


----------



## ironco (Jun 20, 2012)

One of our other crews on duty on one of my shifts left our cot at the hospital lol. Never let em live it down either.


----------



## medicsb (Jun 20, 2012)

I know of a crew that got tapped out for a cardiac arrest while they were  washing the truck.   Not only did they forget the stretcher, but they forgot the first-in bag and life-pak 12, too (on the stretcher).


----------



## abckidsmom (Jun 20, 2012)

Veneficus said:


> Isn't there some sort of convention where the person who rides the call writes the report and the person who drives returns the truck to service?
> 
> I have never worked anywhere that was not the case.



This ball gets dropped sometimes.  One medic I work with is such an *** that his basic partners will not deal with his messes in the truck.

It's very helpful.

The worst thing I ever did was accidentally leave the first in bag (with the airway kit) on the scene of a traffic accident when we were transporting a critically ill trauma patient.  Fortunately, all she needed was BLS airway management and we had NPAs and BVMs in the cabinet.  The intubation stuff was back on the scene.

Oops!


----------



## Melclin (Jun 22, 2012)

Never the stretcher.

I did leave the monitor at hospital once. Nightshift....zombie tired. Went back to bed and didn't realise until the day shift pointed it out in the morning. I was mortified because we'd been to a pretty sick sounding chest pain in between but were thankfully cancelled before arrival for a closer unit. 

Left one of the bags at seen once. Nursing home called our bosses, bosses sent us an embarrassing page. 

Left a few bits and pieces at pts houses once or twice. Collars, sharps container etc.


----------



## jediwill (Jun 23, 2012)

Even worse....my partner and I were about to head across the street for shift change but he got out to grab some supplies from the station...I was dead tired and so was he so when someone in uniform climbed in the back I called out"Hey im heading across"...no response...so I headed out only to hear my partner come over the radio wondering why his partner was leaving him....my thinking was"That's funny...Kevin is in the back...but I don't hear him talking into the portable.....wait a sec....Kevin doesn't have tattoos.....oh :censored::censored::censored::censored: that's not Kevin"Yeah...another medic half asleep had decided to hitch a rid"....He held a grudge for a whiiile.lol


----------



## jediwill (Jun 23, 2012)

*Even worse....*

:-\


----------



## Achilles (Jun 23, 2012)

I left a pt at the Ed once, does that count


----------



## RanchoEMT (Jun 24, 2012)

Yeah.... It was with a transport company that did both gurney and wheelchair transports in the same unit. If it was a wheelchair call you would leave the gurney at the station.... One day we got a gurney transport out of a hospital about 30 min. away from the station.  We got on scene, looked in the back and FML.

".............." -Partner
"...........F**k." -Me


----------



## ZombieEMT (Jul 20, 2012)

*Has anyone intentionally left a stretcher?*

I was once in a weird situation in which bringing the stretcher was not the most optimal situation. As department policy (and NJ state law), we transport and service dog upon request of patient. This particular dog happened to be a Saint Bernard and was quite large. Getting the dog into the back of our truck, became an almost impossible task. Even more of impossible task was transporting the patient without the dog.

In the end the decision we made was to remove the stretcher and put the dog on the floor. Patient was transported on a backboard secured to the bench seat. Thankfully, this was possible, having an ambulance equipped to do so.


On a side note, a situation did occur with a different crew in which the stretcher was left behind at the landing zone of patient taken out by helicopter.


----------



## medicdan (Jul 20, 2012)

This picture made it rounds last night on the facebookz of many of my friends... at a Boston hospital last night.






The stretcher apparently sat there for 6-7 hours before being recovered.


----------



## Tigger (Jul 20, 2012)

One more reason I wish I didn't get transferred out of Boston. Hmmm who uses strykers. I suppose in Boston it could be someone from out of town too...


----------



## Bluestar (Aug 14, 2012)

i wathced a crew head out one day of the bay with their cot hanging by cot catch out back door..they had cleaned back out earlier and left it sitting out just hung by the catch..they both walked right by it..doors open and hanging out without putting it in...and took off..i got em sstopped by time they got to end of driveway by hollering on the radio..took me a minute to spit it out cause i was laughing so hard..thing was going from side to side and  they were flying out on emergency call..denctly long driveway we have so they had some decent speed


----------



## Ruamkatanyu (Aug 19, 2012)

I would be very tempted to take that "FREE" stretcher


----------



## Trashtruck (Aug 22, 2012)

Yep! 
Three times!


----------



## firedad31 (Aug 29, 2012)

*Forgot the cot sort of*

Guys I know didn't forget the cot just forgot to load it. The catch on the cot was on the hook the guys took off for a call when they rounded a corner in the parking lot the cot passed them. 

Whoops


----------



## leoemt (Aug 29, 2012)

When I was at Harborview for my EMT clinicals, one of the ambulance crews forgot their stretcher in the ER and had ran a call without it. I didn't understand how it could happen as its such a large piece of equipment but I guess its more common than I thought. 

That poor EMT was sweating bullets waiting for his supervisor. I don't know what became of it but I do know he was scared of being fired as he was on probation.


----------



## waaaemt (Sep 25, 2012)

one time a crew left their stretcher at the hospital and totally didn't notice somehow. our supervisor got a call from a FF who just delivered a PT being informed of it and he told the guys to do a rig check to see what was missing and they still couldn't figure it out. hilarious


----------



## WuLabsWuTecH (Sep 27, 2012)

I don't understand how you forget the cot, but I guess we have SOGs in place to prevent us from doing that as much as possible.  At the hospital, the driver is responsible for putting the truck back together so it's always known who's in charge of the cot there.  Also, since we're usually on a three man crew, the guy in the back will notice if the cot is missing...

Even when just washing out the truck though, I would find it very hard to forget that the stretcher is out of the truck!


----------



## tsktsk (Nov 1, 2012)

We had a crew on a MVC, boarded and loaded the patient. The EMT got up front to drive and continued to the hospital. Upon arrival at the ER, she walked to the back of the truck, opened the rear doors and to her horror the patient was on the stretcher but no medic. They weren't far from the ER, thus dispatch didn't get her on the radio and the medic arrived shortly after as FD gave him a ride on the engine. It didn't go over well when they contacted the supervisor.


----------



## 11569150 (Nov 2, 2012)

I've heard such horror stories myself about that happening.  Heard of someone going to a T/C some 20 miles out from the station with the gurney left comfortably behind in the app. bay with the cavi wipes still on top:blink:.  I hope to avoid that from ever happening to me.  I guess that's what bench seats and scoops/flats/backboards are for...........


----------



## tsktsk (Nov 2, 2012)

I don't remember the outcome but I do know that EMT no longer is employed with us


----------

