Am I just being a n00b? Checking jump bag before shift

[mycrofft]

The loaded litter tends to become totally loaded, so if the back needs to be brought up to make a tight corner the stuff has to come off.
How about saving those six seconds by pre packing a backpack, stowing it in an outer compartment in a position where you just back up to it, put on the straps, and walk a way as you draw the straps tight?

Or rapid response seat with backpacked kit in the rear?

Or just take a breath and use those six seconds while you gather kits to mentally switch gears from "drive" to "scene safety/survey", then "treat"?

 

[epipusher]

His question was, is everything secured to the cot? You know, with straps? Or are they just sitting on top?

Sitting on top. I'd still go for ease of use everytime. If ambulances were wrecking in our area left and right, day in and day out, then I'd stow them in a proper area. But until then(knock on wood)its easier when running 10-14 runs in a 12 hour shift. Yes its absolutely dangerous, but so is smoking, so is playing ice hockey, as well as drinking milk two days after the use by date. All of which I do on a regular basis.

 

[mycrofft]

And when the drug kit slides off the cot on a tight turn or a quick downhill decel?
Ease of use comes from a balance of safety, rationality, and familiarity. Otherwise, gonna be a lot of Pelican boxes lying around on the scene

 

[shfd739]

Sitting on top. I'd still go for ease of use everytime. If ambulances were wrecking in our area left and right, day in and day out, then I'd stow them in a proper area. But until then(knock on wood)its easier when running 10-14 runs in a 12 hour shift. Yes its absolutely dangerous, but so is smoking, so is playing ice hockey, as well as drinking milk two days after the use by date. All of which I do on a regular basis.

And the extra 20 seconds to buckle and unbuckle cot straps from around the gear wont slow you down.

Have and Have Nots: The Haves, have had a significant vehicle incident involving equipment and personnel damage and understand the need to secure items and be safe. Securing gear while traveling is done without question.

The Have Nots see vehicle incidents as infrequent and think it wont happen to them. When it does finally happen the equipment and personnel damage will be severe.

Then they become a Have and that 20 seconds to buckle the straps around gear isnt the inconvience it was once seen as.

 

[Handsome Robb]

Sitting on top. I'd still go for ease of use everytime. If ambulances were wrecking in our area left and right, day in and day out, then I'd stow them in a proper area. But until then(knock on wood)its easier when running 10-14 runs in a 12 hour shift. Yes its absolutely dangerous, but so is smoking, so is playing ice hockey, as well as drinking milk two days after the use by date. All of which I do on a regular basis.

A busy system isn't an excuse. I work in a busy system. We put stuff on the cot and we buckle it in. It doesn't take that long to buckle or unbuckle it.

Unfortunately we don't have monitor mounts but crews still secure it with a seatbelt while we provide pt care.

 

[mycrofft]

Back to OP, no you're not a noob, you're being smart. I'm betting you are not the troublesome 90% that mess stuff up and require things to be sealed.

Buried in my first reply was that someone at one point got hold of similar seals and was resealing the (my) kit bags after they had made their modifications. I had to record and track serial numbers on the seals for a while, then got that onto the grapevine. AND I changed seals three times and told the supervisors NOT to leave them lying around and NOT to give them to people to reinspect and reseal the kits for the supervisors.

If your system is that corrupt, then yeah, I'd be opening them every shift, too.

 

[Medic Tim]

I work in a system where we tag cabinets and bags. I hate it. You never know what you will find ( or not be able to find) if I don't check things out for myself. I. Have been burned before.

 

[Tigger]

Sitting on top. I'd still go for ease of use everytime. If ambulances were wrecking in our area left and right, day in and day out, then I'd stow them in a proper area. But until then(knock on wood)its easier when running 10-14 runs in a 12 hour shift. Yes its absolutely dangerous, but so is smoking, so is playing ice hockey, as well as drinking milk two days after the use by date. All of which I do on a regular basis.

You don't have to crash the truck to create a projectile. All it takes is a hard stop to avoid the crash. And while you might accept the risk, your partner may not, and I'm betting the other motorists and pedestrians on the road do not either. Unsecured projectiles equals a distracted driver.

 

[mycrofft]

If they seal the kits and cabinets, and the contents are not in accordance with the official list, the director or manager needs to know. They may be looking at someone stealing supplies, or intentionally shorting supplies, or someone with seals making it look bad for the supply person.

Do they let just anyone seal a kit or cabinet? Shouldn't.

If the current supply person isn't doing their job, volunteer. Maybe a way to start climbing the stepladder into admin!

 

[LifelongEMT]

Im a TRUE noob im only an EMT-IV and have been for only 6 months but i work for a private service but not old enough to drive so i staff a full time BLS truck. Every morning I check everything on my truck and trauma bags and always will. Guess thats just one of my habbits...But I still have things come up missing from my truck where other crews were taking it off my truck. so i guess its good to always check your stuff out.

 

[bw2529]

As a student and a member of a volunteer service, I like doing the occasional rig check. It helps me remind myself of where things are, what thing are, and what they are used for. I usually try to have the driver and/or primary medic there so I can ask any questions while doing it ("where is that again?" "and how do you use that?").

I'll probably still do it more frequently than most once I'm cleared, but probably not every shift. If it is sealed, it more than likely has more than what is required, if anything.

 

[DesertMedic66]

Pretty much all of our rigs are set up differently and the bags can vary also. If I'm getting 1 unit for the entire week and no one else is going to use it then I will only check it out on the first shift. If I get a different unit every day then I will check everything out everyday.

I made the mistake of not checking out a unit during my FTO time. The one day I didn't check the rig out is the day where our monitor was missing the main cable that we didn't notice until after the first call.

 

[jjesusfreak01]

Nowhere I have worked has ever used seals on more than one or two rarely used items (for example, the peds bag). We are responsible for everything being on the truck, and this works well. There was one circumstance where a sealed box was missing a drug that I actually intended to use, and I was a little upset about that, and the district chief was notified. Luckily, the pt ended up not being aware enough to use actidose.

That said, I think if you are going to have a seal system, you have to enforce it religiously, with punishments for those who seal bags and leave items missing. Otherwise, it just won't work.

 

[mycrofft]

Precisely

 

[snaps10]

Doesn't matter what anyone else says. Like you said, you're the medic, you're in charge.
It's going to be the little everyday things we use that's going to be over looked because it's assumed they're always there.

 

[Martyn]

If I were to break the seals every shift I'd probably get yelled at.

2nd that one

 

[cruiseforever]

Our system uses seals. When checking my rig, if I break them I replace them. Keeps everone happy.

 

[mycrofft]

Cruise, are the seals controlled, and do you complete a specific item by item checklist each time? Do you ever seal a kit without some components because they aren't available?

 

[WuLabsWuTecH]

So at my full time service EVERYTHING gets checked out. There is one 24 hour paid guy on per day, and 3 day shift paid guys. These 4 are responsible for checking EVERYTHING in regards to supplies each day. There are some weekly checks like oil level, coolant level, Fire Extinguisher, Gun Safe, etc. but medical supplies are daily. This mean number of supplies, as well as every single intubation blade's bulb. Since they have 2 trucks to check plus the back up truck, truck checks each day take over an hour. It can be done in just shy of an hour if the 5th man on duty (a volunteer) helps out.

The only things that are sealed are the pediatric broslow kit, and the drug kits. All the seals are signed for, so in the event a drug kit is not stocked correctly, we will know exactly who fouled up. If it must be resealed without being full, then a note is left in the seal logbook, in the station notes for the oncoming crew, and a note is taped to a full 8.5x11 sheet of paper across the front of the box such that whomever is doing the next truck check is able to see immediately that there is a varience in the drug kit.

The only reason we seal the broslow kit is for convinience--it's rarely used and checking three of them daily would add another 30 minutes to the truck check time. Also, once a Broslow kit is used, it's done. We take it out of service and grab a new one off the cabinet. The full-timer ordering supplies will go through it using a checklist the company provides, send in the completed checklist with missing parts, and they send us the replacements before it gets sealed again.

The only reason we seal the drug kits is to keep track of who used them. Since any of our trucks can be a squad, advanced squad, or medic on any given run, we need to keep the basic drugs separate from the intermediate drugs, from the medic drugs.

Also, because after 4pm, only one full-time staff mamber is on, this means the rest of the crews can be responding from home. If that is the case, they need to know their truck is checked out and ready to go.

So I guess the take home message of this is: if you have highly trained people checking out the truck each day then the chance of error is slim. Does it happen still? yes. But at some point, yo got to learn to trust the guys you with to a certain extent. If we checked out our own trucks before every run at night, you'd be waiting a long time to get help...

 

[cruiseforever]

Cruise, are the seals controlled, and do you complete a specific item by item checklist each time? Do you ever seal a kit without some components because they aren't available?

Seals are not controlled. All the bins and compartments are labeled with what goes in them and the number of each item. I would not seal a compartment or bag unless all items are there.