Duty To Act Question

[Ryan Cohen]

Brand new emt here, and I had a question that I'm sure many experienced emt's have encountered: if you're on call to a scene, and you come across a car crash or other incident en route, do you have a duty to act on that scene first or are you obligated to your initial dispatch and pass it up? I'm a California emt if there are state policies involved. Thank you so much!

 

[OnceAnEMT]

I asked a preceptor a similar question once when we responded to a MVC that was secondary to maneuvering to avoid a code 3 ambulance. They said that if a responding vehicle witnesses an accident they do their duty by informing dispatch directly, but keep their call. I'm sure this varies by system, especially priority plays a larger roll in low-truck systems (rural, small town, etc.)

 

[NomadicMedic]

Here's a great sticky on this very topic: http://emtlife.com/threads/duty-to-act-info.5673/

 

[Ewok Jerky]

Your duty is to the call you were dispatched for. Call in the second call and be on your way.

 

[DesertMedic66]

company policies may change but it seems the most common thing to do is to keep going to your call you were assigned to and call it in to dispatch. They may have you stop at the accident or continue on.

 

[Tigger]

We make the determination based upon resources available. If we have another ambulance that can get to the first call in a reasonable amount of time, we will stay with what we happened upon. Our district is shaped in such a way that if we were to continue on, we would likely pass the second ambulance coming towards us, which doesn't make sense.