AMR Victorville

Qulevrius said:
You probably never had to deal with OCFA then.
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I worked one or two shifts with CARE in their OC area years ago. Like @terrible one I've worked with many different SoCal FD's over the years, and quite honestly they all blended together after a while.
 
VentMonkey said:
I worked one or two shifts with CARE in their OC area years ago. Like @terrible one I've worked with many different SoCal FD's over the years, and quite honestly they all blended together after a while.
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I will forever have a special place in my gall bladder for OCFA. A very special place.


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That honestly sounds terrible to deal with. Any particular fire-medic horror stories?
 
RocketMedic said:
That honestly sounds terrible to deal with. Any particular fire-medic horror stories?
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A fire medic who won't give a bolus to a 20 y.o., heavily intoxicated female, because 'how else would she learn'. That just off the top of my head. Does that qualify ?


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Had a county medic slam 10mg Versed IV for a seizure and then ask later what the dose was. For SB county it's 2.5 repeated twice. They will sit in their station and wait until they see AMR to drive by before responding to a call. Had a 40 y/o F altered OD on morphine, norcos and a butt load of ETOH, taching out @ 120-130 with a blood pressure of 60 and they had no intention of treating. Witnessed arrest and they will do 1 handed compressions and state "just going through the motions baby". There have been small MCIs from TCs with maybe like 4-5 patients, 2 will be dead and they will be working on the dead ones while there are 3 others, altered and circling the drain. They then expect the first AMR units on scene to transport the already dead patients and leave the ones still alive until secondary units respond. I could fill a book with County Fire Horror stories.
I never interacted with LaCoFD but from what I hear from friends who work in LA, I don't know how much worse SBCoFD could be. LACoFD is in a whole other league of terrible pt care. At least AMR has medics on every box who can challenge and fix Fire's mistakes in San Bernardino.
 
County Fire will be first on scene and most of the time we're lucky if they brought their tablet in. They hardly ever pull their own equipment. Most of their assesments are "What's your name? What's wrong? What hospital would you like to go to? Ok, AMR will be here in a minute". There have been 20 year old patients with chest pain and two questions after asking about their chest pain, County will try and give ASA & Nitro.
There are a handful of good medics out there but for the most part it's a nightmare running with County. Some of their new Probies are pretty decent so hopefully a new attitude and culture will develop within the department but I'm not optimistic.
 
Wow. I take it no one in positions of authority cares?
 
RocketMedic said:
Wow. I take it no one in positions of authority cares?
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Why would they ? We're talking about decades of tradition which raised and shaped the F'd up 'culture' of 99% of FD's in SoCal. And there's no end in sight, since the newer generations are drinking the exact same Kool Aid.


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RocketMedic said:
Wow. I take it no one in positions of authority cares?
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Nope. It's all in how you document and I assume that they're smart enough to not hang themselves in their paperwork. I only make that assumption because I still see the same medics everyday and they're still operating as medics. ICEMA does random audits from time to time but it seems like the only ones who get disciplined are on the AMR side. But in all fairness I don't know how their QI process works.
 
Our county and city fire departments have been trying to go ALS for years now. Will it happen one day? My opinion is...most likely.

I live in a fire-based state plain and simple. It has forced me to realize two things:

1. I can relocate out of state (highly unlikely).

2. I can segue into another vocation/ career and retire from this field when my body can--inevitably--do this no longer.

None of the above posts surprise me, or are new to me. It merely confirms I chose the wrong profession for my state. It also makes me glad I continue to refuse to let my work, or job title define who I am.
 
VentMonkey said:
Our county and city fire departments have been trying to go ALS for years now. Will it happen one day? My opinion is...most likely.

I live in a fire-based state plain and simple. It has forced me to realize two things:

1. I can relocate out of state (highly unlikely).

2. I can segue into another vocation/ career and retire from this field when my body can--inevitably--do this no longer.

None of the above posts surprise me, or are new to me. It merely confirms I chose the wrong profession for my state. It also makes me glad I continue to refuse to let my work, or job title define who I am.
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Very well said.
 
I take it the AMR/Fire relationship is a "yes, master?" one?
 
Echoing what CTMD said, they'll get on scene first and bring no equipment in. At night they'll just wait in the engine for AMR to show up and then maybe send one FF in to check if AMR needs help. Even if AMR does need help they won't always assist. The only next step to not caring would be I could see is if they just didn't show up to calls at all. The apathy couldn't be more apparent.
 
Wow. Someone really ought to clean house there.
 
RocketMedic said:
I take it the AMR/Fire relationship is a "yes, master?" one?
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Not in Victorville. We generally try and play nice with each other but will disagree quite often. As the AMR medic I do what I want no matter what fire says and if they want to complain, good luck. All my sups have my back and will almost always stand with their crews.
 
Can't tell you how many times Fire has tried to throw their weight with AMR crews and AMR will just say "last I checked, County Fire doesn't sign my paychecks". They love that reply lol
 
CTMD said:
"last I checked, County Fire doesn't sign my paychecks". They love that reply lol
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If I have a crew doing that to me I just say "you're not my boss, I don't work for you". It rarely gets used but has the same effect.
 
So who is in charge of scenes there?
 
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