EMS and Biker Groups

wadford

wadford

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I know I haven't been active on here for a while. Real life has been keeping me hostage. Working county and private.

We had an incident earlier in the week, homicide/biker gang violence. I was talking to my Lt. afterwards and he said that if we ever responded to an incident that involved a biker wearing "colors" that we were to go out of our way so that we didn't cut the vest/jacket what have you off of the pt should we need to. That there was a definite possibility of violent backlash towards ems from that particular group. For some reason that really stuck with me and made me angry. They would rather delay care (in some cases much needed life saving kind of care) than have their jacket removed, and even so far as becoming a danger to the very people and organization that tried to help them! I'd really love some insight into this, if anyone has ever had to deal with this personally.

Thanks :)
 
If the vest can be removed safely then remove it. It it does need to be cut off ask the other bikers around him if it is ok and where to cut so they can stitch it back up. If they say no to cutting and you think they will get violent (hopefully PD is on scene) then have them help you remove it.

I have found that just talking to the bikers and letting them know what needs to get done will go a long way. I've never had an issue with bikers. Quite the opposite for my area. They will help pull traffic over when we are going code. We had a psych patient yelling at us during an event, we called for PD to come over but before PD arrived a biker "group" escorted the lady away from us.
 
I'll echo Desert- I've never had a problem with them. Granted, most of them seem to be the "Wild Hogs" type, but the few times I've run a member of a motorcycle club, they and their friends have been very polite.
 
If the patient is conscious, ask them to help you remove the clothing in question before just going straight to cutting it if possible. Scary biker or grandma, it's the respectful thing to do.
 
I've never dealt with a biker group other than via phone in a 911 situation, but in casino security I had many encounters. Apparently they figured I was most intimidating, so it was my job to ask bikers to remove their vests. I never had any problem, and that included local groups up through 1%rs. As long as I didn't make a show of it and was respectful about it, it was not a big deal.

I've helped handle scenes as a dispatcher that have gotten very ugly with biker groups. They can have very strong mob mentalities, but also tend to behave better when you make then feel like they are helping. One scene in particular, the crew had them help hold the strecther, and it completely diffused the situation.
 
Thanks

Thanks guys, all of this is really helpful!
 
We have a Warlocks chapter that roams around these parts. When we had to remove his colors, he had rawhide lacing one the sides so it just cut those, no damage to the vest itself. Within the motorcycling community, this is becoming more popular for this reason. When you crash, and every biker knows its a matter of when, its easier to have EMS cut $2 rawhide strings then a whole vest

Gangs, both street and 1%ers, are portrayed as a big danger to EMS, but i have had the opposite experience. EMS has always been held as a neutral party in my area. Ive even had an OG beat a new member for giving us a hard time on a shooting. His attitude was that we are here only to help, we dont narc, we just tend to the wounded. We have no dog in the fight. Ive had 1%ers direct traffic on accident scenes, Crips pull scene security, and Latin Kings help with a carry down
 
The bikers here have always been really chill towards us. Those groups/gangs/clubs, whatever you want to call them, are generally all about respect. If you're respectful to them they'll be respectful back to you. I've had the same experience as Bullets, they view us as a neutral party. We're just there to help but like I said above its all about respect. If you're an :censored::censored::censored::censored::censored::censored::censored: they aren't going to be nice back to you. You also have to accept that some of them have gruff personalities...they aren't trying to sound mean or rude or condescending, that's just the way they are. You have to remember that not only is it a bad day for your patient, it's a bad day for their buddies too. How many times have you seen it where the bystanders/family are more riled up than the patient is?

Riders getting mad about us cutting gear isn't limited to MCs. Most will get pretty angry if you start snipping away at their gear, the stuff is not cheap. Think about how upset people get when we cut a pair of jeans or a shirt that is the fraction of the price of a nice motorcycle vest or jacket.

Unless there's a big reason why I can't take the jacket or "cut" off I either let them remove it themselves or help them with it. The "seconds you save" cutting someone's gear vs. taking it off does not matter in the majority of cases...if it truly does they probably aren't going to be awake to care and hopefully you've controlled your scene well enough, provided you have adequate resources, to have made yourself some space to work and gotten the bystanders away from the patient. If you have to cut it, tell them before you do it. Also, like someone else said, cut along the seams so it can be repaired. Also probably going to be easier cutting through the seam than some of the true protective gear.
 
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Bullets said:
We have a Warlocks chapter that roams around these parts. When we had to remove his colors, he had rawhide lacing one the sides so it just cut those, no damage to the vest itself. Within the motorcycling community, this is becoming more popular for this reason. When you crash, and every biker knows its a matter of when, its easier to have EMS cut $2 rawhide strings then a whole vest

Gangs, both street and 1%ers, are portrayed as a big danger to EMS, but i have had the opposite experience. EMS has always been held as a neutral party in my area. Ive even had an OG beat a new member for giving us a hard time on a shooting. His attitude was that we are here only to help, we dont narc, we just tend to the wounded. We have no dog in the fight. Ive had 1%ers direct traffic on accident scenes, Crips pull scene security, and Latin Kings help with a carry down
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Same here, just treat them how you expect to be treated and they will do the same in return. Most groups will go out of their way to help you help their friend. Last Biker I went on, one of the brothers was a former 68W so the patient was stripped, bandaged, triaged, had a list of HAM ready when we arrived.

as an aside, your supervisor is correct. my riding suit is about $1500 and very thick leather with hard armor. if you think standard shears are getting it off your have a surprise waiting for you. your best bet is to unzip the chest to visualize and leave the rest there, if anythings broken you will make it worse trying to take the suit off. I know the average biker isnt wearing this level but the cheapest leather jacket I have seen that anyone with any amount of self respect would be wearing is >$200
 
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