# Emergency staff sick of abusive drunks



## enjoynz (Jun 10, 2011)

This worldwide issue is not going to go away any time soon.
Story as attached:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/5124928/Emergency-staff-sick-of-abusive-drunks/

In New Zealand unless they have an injury, a percentage of the ETOH patients end up being driven home by the police if they are capable of suppling their address,
or otherwise spending a night in the cells, to sleep it off.

Do you think anything would change, if more emergency workers had ETOH patients charged for verbal or physical abuse, or do you already have this policy at your station?

In that case, would it make a difference, being that said person would not have a lot of recollection, if any, of what they had done?

Statistics of emergency workers being abused have increased over the years.

Is this because more teens are publicly binge drinking or just not respecting those that are trying to help them, or are those being abusive older folk?


----------



## bigbaldguy (Jun 10, 2011)

This isn't just in the EMS/ER area. We see a lot of this on the aircraft too. It dropped off after 9/11 for a few months but now we generally pull about one abusive drunk off the airplane a week. In my last three days of work we pulled 4 off. Like you said I'm sure most of them have no memory of how they acted the day before. It's a mess.


----------



## CAOX3 (Jun 10, 2011)

I'm not sure when intoxication became a medical emergency, its legal and a desired effect , why are we bringing these people to overcrowded emergency rooms to babysit them?   Their a drain on EMS, hospital staff and police resources.

I think litigation is a big problem, no one wants the responsibility of watching them because a few who have died after soaking their liver in a quart of wild turkey.

As far as being verbally abused I don't even notice anymore, physical abuse they don't want to go down that road.


----------



## Chief Complaint (Jun 10, 2011)

Anyone in EMS who presses charges for verbal abuse is a sissy. Grow some thicker skin.


----------



## medicdan (Jun 10, 2011)

CAOX3 said:


> I'm not sure when intoxication became a medical emergency, its legal and a desired effect , why are we bringing these people to overcrowded emergency rooms to babysit them?   Their a drain on EMS, hospital staff and police resources.
> 
> I think litigation is a big problem, no one wants the responsibility of watching them because a few who have died after soaking their liver in a quart of wild turkey.
> 
> As far as being verbally abused I don't even notice anymore, physical abuse they don't want to go down that road.



The reason it's medicalized is because police keep calling us (ABC=Ambulance be commin'). We cannot leave a patient like this alone, so we send them to the hosp (to get a bag of fluid and a few hours rest), and return. 
I work on a college campus (albeit not a typical one), and we have very few frequent fliers for ETOH-- spending a night getting a liter of fluid pretty much prevents repeat offenders. That, or the bill.


----------



## mycrofft (Jun 11, 2011)

*Thick skin.*

That's what makes a profession.

Public intox is such a pain to get involved with at any level, and there is always the joker who dies due to medical conditions connected to or overlooked because they are "drunk", when what they have, or also have, is a closed head injury, diabetic emergency, accidental or purposful medication overdose.

How about sentencing repeaters to the stocks? Detox em, then 12 hrs of public ridicule, maybe on public access.


----------



## MrBrown (Jun 11, 2011)

OMG Brown is so sick of drunks it used to be on a Friday or Saturday night but now its Wednesday and all the students are out getting pissed, Thursday, Friday and Saturday everybody is out drinking and its chaos.

Between the ones who get aggressive, the ones who cry on you, the ones who want to tell you their life story, the ones that vomit on you or the ones who want to give you a hiding for helping their friend who is PFO (pissed and fell over) heck its hard to tell which are worse.

Nothing will change if we have the cops arrest them, the cops are busy enough as it is, we both know how packed the courts are with P cooks and it will simply take up more Ambulance resources taking vehicles off the road while the AOs are dealing with the court process.


----------



## mycrofft (Jun 11, 2011)

*Just re-read my comment.*

I failed to convey my sarcasm.
One should be able to work despite abuse and such, but as a profession one needs to insist on safety and as little abuse as can leak through safeguards, and one should be heard. More security, support in the event of suits or such, training, better physical layout, whatever; if abuse is tolerated, it will not win respect from admin, just taken for granted. And the abusers will be emboldened.


----------



## Pummpkin (Jun 13, 2011)

There is an ebb and flow of drunk calls here.  It seems like the summer months yield more alcohol related calls (anecdotal observation, however) and it slows down in Fall/Winter, despite logic guiding me to believe contrary.


----------



## sjohnson0813 (Jun 14, 2011)

I work in a beach resort town in the US, where pretty much everyone is drunk.  Local PD will pick up people on "public intox" if they are being aggressive or can't make it to anywhere to sober up on their own, but they just put them in the city jail for the night and release them in the morning when they're sober.

EMS is only called if the subject is unconscious/unresponsive.  Guess we're lucky.


----------



## AMF (Jun 14, 2011)

sjohnson0813 said:


> I work in a beach resort town in the US, where pretty much everyone is drunk.  Local PD will pick up people on "public intox" if they are being aggressive or can't make it to anywhere to sober up on their own, but they just put them in the city jail for the night and release them in the morning when they're sober.
> 
> EMS is only called if the subject is unconscious/unresponsive.  Guess we're lucky.



Me too!  Well, a college, so there are some fundamental differences.  At least you can entertain the possibility of a shark attack


----------



## TransportJockey (Jun 14, 2011)

Here in ABQ, Bus winds up transporting almost every drunk. It's ridiculous. Nights, especially on the weekends, have an ungodly number of 32Bs come out, PD doesn't want to take any of them to jail
Makes me glad that in the county I work in, PD usually takes em right to jail


----------

