Check that gear

THIS thread can never be allowed to die..except for the shin-kicking part!

I am assigned to check the equipment in five exam rooms each shift I come on, including EKG, O2 cylinders, battery op suction,and presence and sealed condition of a hybridized emergency kit.

Lately, I discovered people had been stealing airways and IV solutions and resealing the kits.

A FernoWashington Model 9, missing for five years, magically reappeared.

Ambulance litter straps had been rearranged.

An AED with a DEAD battery...Zoll Pro, rechargeable Li ion battery worth over 300 discharges, and it promptly and cheerfully recharged once replaced. (We have defibed three people in eleven years).

Test strips (electrodes) missing from a glucometer kit.

And as for ambulance...rolled out once without the litter, and once heard the O2 whisper silent while doing CPR enroute to hospital.
THanks for kicking this off Topher38!
Now I have to lock up the seals, especially after finding a cache of them.
 
yea always check the main stuff before you leave: can do a 2 min check.

had an off going crew tell me that the truck was in great shape: we check out our equipment went to put it in the back of the truck, and noticed a slight problem: NO COT; grabbed one of the outgoing crew on the way out, she didn't know where they left it.
the also had forgotten to put a new on board tank in, when they took the empty one off at the beginning of their shift, 12 hours earlier: but they had on their run sheets that they had transported 4 patients on oxygen. (and noted that they had put them on the on board).

always at least look to make sure that you have oxygen and a cot. 2 very important items to have
 
I've learned that whatever I don't check will be missing, expired, or broken... although this is much more likely at one place than others. So yeah, I've had some problems from not checking gear first.

I'm obsessive about checking (and cleaning!) gear. Some days we get a call the moment we get on duty, so we have to run and hope the crew before us had everything in order... but I will be checking the gear as soon as we get breathing room, and I'll check and replace as much as I can while we're on our way. If my medic and other crew members aren't interested, doesn't matter. I'll check everything I can, and let them know if something doesn't look right in the ALS stuff.

At one place, this has made me a bit unpopular, even though I don't report anything I can handle alone. For instance, I recently found a soaking wet bag. So I unloaded it, threw out the unusable equipment, and threw the bag in the dryer. Boss walks in, checks to see why the dryer's on... and the crew before us hears gets an earful about taking care of gear. The supply officer is getting tired of needing to replace stuff that expired in 1999. Can't say I care... if you're embarrassed because I noticed something wrong that you should've found last shift, that's not my problem.

I always check gear in order of importance, too. AED/Lifepack and oxygen come before everything.
 
I'm lucky that the crews we take over for, and turn over to are really awesome crews. My partner and I always check the ambulance. For the most part he does the outside, and I do the inside and we have only once been caught in a bad situation. We were having a pretty slow shift. Some how, our main O2 shifted causing the valve to start leaking. We think it was from hitting a bump near the beginning of our shift. Anyway, we didn't use the O2 for several hours, and when we did finally go to use it, it was empty. We had our portable, and a couple of back up D cylinders, so there was no issue treating the patient.

Which leads me to the caveat of the "always check your gear and you will be fine" rule. And that is, you can check your gear 1000 times, and something unexpected can still happen. Checking your gear doesn't mean you are 100% safe, but it significantly reduces the chance you will have an issue later on.
 
Didn't read the entire post and replies but I recently got lazy and didn't check my glucometer supplies. Guess what our first run of the day was an who looked like a ruh-tard having to use the patients glucometer.
 
Here's a revolutionary plan!

1. The run is not over until you are ready to go again.
2. Do not leave shift until you have checked your vehicle. Better, check it along with the ongoing and the offgoing shifts.
3. When you get a clean complete unit, thank the crew and if they do it three times running, write a note to the boss and cc to the crew. (ALWAYS compliment people to their boss, unless it's is like "Dude, thanks for those righteous Vicodin samples").
4. Checklists.
5. No changing stuff without getting consensus.
 
Dominion said:
Didn't read the entire post and replies but I recently got lazy and didn't check my glucometer supplies. Guess what our first run of the day was an who looked like a ruh-tard having to use the patients glucometer.
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i've never not had a glucometer, however I've had a glucometer I didn't check to see if it was coded with the strips we had. Guess who looks like an idiot when you poke the patient, get the blood, and they want to know what their BGL is. ^_^

I've also gotten totally innacurate readings (30 on an alert, oriented person just sitting there happy as a clam, checked twice, different spots, hospital got a BGL of 120 something.) so during truck check my partner or I check our own blood sugar to make sure it's in good shape and not going to give us off the wall readings AND at the same time assuring that those strips will work in the meter.

We check and stock (yes we, I don't pretend to take an hour checking the drug box while my poor EMT is stuck checking fluids, BLS and ALS equipment like some medics at my company do.) prior to going in service, and I write down everything we use throughout the day, and stock it back up at the end of the night, just in case someone gets lazy, they're not caught with their pants down.
 
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PANTS! I never thought about PANTS!

I open a glucometer kit and find mixed batches of electrodes, four or five calibrators, three bottles of each type of insulin opened without an "open date" written on them, unaccounted-for syringes, and nteh occasional used lancet. Our machines will not accept an incorrectly calibrated electrode, and when you set the meter up you have to put in the date so it rejects expired electrodes.
(Yes, the company calls the test strips "electrodes").
 
Sasha said:
i've never not had a glucometer, however I've had a glucometer I didn't check to see if it was coded with the strips we had. Guess who looks like an idiot when you poke the patient, get the blood, and they want to know what their BGL is. ^_^.
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I HAD my glucometer, I just didn't have any strips. And just yesterday I went to do a check, opened my container and had no strips then either. Thankfully I had a spare box in my drug box. Turns out that the run before that my medic spilled the strips into the trash on accident. Found about 30 strips in the trash can.

On that patient thankfully they had their own glucometer with test strips, so I ran a test strip to make sure it was calibrated then took their test. Still was kinda embarressing even though the family was pretty friendly about it.

This is the reason I also like having my own assigned truck, as the crews on my shift look after each others squads (day vs. night shifts).
 
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The temptation is to buy your own stuff...

If it fails, you are liable. Your employer might not approve of that equip. And it's expensive.
 
I once forgot to restock a nebulizer in the box during internship. ...pretty sure I had a look of horror on my face when I listened to lungs and went for it, only to find an empty space where it usually is. Sending an EMT out to the rig to grab one is delegation, right?? <_<
Luckily the patient was mild/mod distress..
That's the only time something like that happened, and hopefully will be the only time. I have a ritual for checking out an ALS rig, never overlooking anything...right down to checking last result on both glucometers to make sure the batteries are good.
 
This guy would have been toast at LA City, had he been on probation he would have been gone that same day.
 
atropine said:
This guy would have been toast at LA City, had he been on probation he would have been gone that same day.
Click to expand...

How would you know, your not a firefighter.
 
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