Glendale fire assaults patient after patient assaults them

[exodus]

http://www.azfamily.com/news/Incide...-internal-review-280738182.html#ixzz3HWyrWEUP

Not sure where to go. Fire's language is definitely inappropriate. Looks like the gurney is tipped over and the guy is still strapped to it. Something's not right here.

Edit: News article pasted above as well.

Seems like he overdosed on probably a narcotic as he was trying to sleep. He woke up from it, then became combative. Sounds like they woke up a hypoxic overdose by slamming him with narcan. Of course he's going to be combative.

 

[SandpitMedic]

I heard mentally ill and seizure...no one can be sure at this point.

Fire let this one get of hand.
I want to side with them, but I just can't.

It should have been handled differently by the captain instead of screaming f*** for every other word.

 

[exodus]

I heard mentally ill and seizure...no one can be sure at this point.

Fire let this one get of hand.
I want to side with them, but I just can't.

It should have been handled differently by the captain instead of screaming f*** for every other word.

Exactly, even if you do get punched, pin the patient down and remain calm until PD gets there. If you can't safely hold the pt down, then leave. No reason to tell the patient he's going to die and you're going to take his life away from his family.

 

[gonefishing]

You have EVERY right to defend yourself so long as it's not excessive force. This guy is tied down not like hes throwing punches also more than enough people to handle it. I've been clocked by psych patients and all I would do is pin them down and strap one extremetie at a time. Yea I would cuss a little that's human nature. But this situation is shocking.

 

[TheLocalMedic]

Granted, we didn't see what came before the video started rolling, but this whole situation was a little out of hand. Dealing with violent people is stressful, but you can't lose control and swear up a storm. I've been sucker punched a few times on calls and had many many many violent people in my care, whether it is from behavioral problems, dementia, drugs, seizures or some other cause, and I have never responded like that. And ALWAYS assume that someone, somewhere, somehow is getting everything you do and say on film.

 

[STXmedic]

Maybe I'm missing something, but all I'm seeing is a foul-mouthed fire crew pinning a guy to the ground, probably waiting for PD...

I have no idea how the stretcher got flipped; we don't know if the patient lunged and flipped it himself or if the fire crew flipped it intentionally (I sure as hell hope not). If a patient gets combative while I'm in close proximity, though, he's going to get pinned down. As for the swearing, big deal. If I get punched, I'll probably swear a bit too. Especially since I already have the vernacular of a sailor [emoji1]

 

[medicsb]

I can understand cursing and losing ones temper for a moment. But, this is a situation where, at the very least, someone should step in and calms things down and refocus team members to the task at hand (taking care of the patient). It sounds like the same guy running his mouth, one of the other guys should have sent him back to the truck to cool off.

 

[teedubbyaw]

I can understand cursing and losing ones temper for a moment. But, this is a situation where, at the very least, someone should step in and calms things down and refocus team members to the task at hand (taking care of the patient). It sounds like the same guy running his mouth, one of the other guys should have sent him back to the truck to cool off.

I can't understand. I get what you're saying and agree, but no one should have to calm a firefighter down. This is his job, he knows the risks, and he should know not to act like a hot headed teenager, especially if the patient is altered.

I will be surprised if he is not terminated. Completely uncalled for and unprofessional.

 

[medicsb]

I can't understand. I get what you're saying and agree, but no one should have to calm a firefighter down. This is his job, he knows the risks, and he should know not to act like a hot headed teenager, especially if the patient is altered.

I will be surprised if he is not terminated. Completely uncalled for and unprofessional.

A fire-fighter is still human, so some sort of outburst after getting punched is understandable along with anger. We know the risks involved with the job, but it doesn't make turning a cheek easy. I agree he should have calmed himself down, but his colleagues should have stepped up and helped calm him down when he did not if for no other reason than his anger becomes a liability. But, yes, it was ultimately uncalled for and unprofessional.

 

[exodus]

Looking at the mugshots, it also looks like he was punched a few times.

 

[OnceAnEMT]

I can understand cursing and losing ones temper for a moment. But, this is a situation where, at the very least, someone should step in and calms things down and refocus team members to the task at hand (taking care of the patient). It sounds like the same guy running his mouth, one of the other guys should have sent him back to the truck to cool off.

I agree. He is the only one running his mouth (others chime in, but simply to follow). If someone manned up and stepped back with him, this video wouldn't be getting anywhere. That firefighter had no control over this scene. Honestly it seemed they didn't even have a plan of action at that point. The crew needed a focus reminder.

The blatant cursing directed at bystanders ought to be grounds for suspension if not termination. That's bad PR if nothing else.

Also, what kind of first responder whines about being swung at? Half the time those same patients are still swinging when they come in the ED, and I've never even heard of staff having an issue like this.

 

[irishboxer384]

Doesn't seem to be anything wrong with what the crew are doing- it takes several men to safely restrain a man/woman no matter how big/small. The ONLY 2 things I think they did wrong was:

1- "you're ****ing dead meat"- which is a direct threat
2- explaining yourself to the public...you don't have to justify yourself to bystanders EVER...unless the bystander is a relative but even then you have a job to do which is more important than explaining what youre doing...

 

[m0nster986]

Speechless, one word... professionalism

 

[karaya]

Doesn't seem to be anything wrong with what the crew are doing- it takes several men to safely restrain a man/woman no matter how big/small. The ONLY 2 things I think they did wrong was:

1- "you're ******* dead meat"- which is a direct threat
2- explaining yourself to the public...you don't have to justify yourself to bystanders EVER...unless the bystander is a relative but even then you have a job to do which is more important than explaining what youre doing...

Even after behaving like a complete ***? If you don't think you don't have to justify your performance to the public in any manner, then I'd suggest you're in the wrong business. That self-righteous arrogance is part of the problem as to how the public perceives emergency services, and unfortunately, many do not look at that in a positive light. The public spectacle these firefighters made of themselves goes beyond any reasonable explanation and only worsens negative perceptions.

 

[irishboxer384]

Even after behaving like a complete ***? If you don't think you don't have to justify your performance to the public in any manner, then I'd suggest you're in the wrong business. That self-righteous arrogance is part of the problem as to how the public perceives emergency services, and unfortunately, many do not look at that in a positive light. The public spectacle these firefighters made of themselves goes beyond any reasonable explanation and only worsens negative perceptions.

I never said you don't have to justify yourself to the public in 'any manner'- I said you don't have to justify yourself to BYSTANDERS... and from experience it can be detrimental to do so- giving the public a target to direct its frustration on. But if you describe common sense preventing a riot or public disorder confrontation by dis-engaging from the public directly at an emergency scene as "self-righteous and arrogant" then it's a great thing we don't operate together.

 

[karaya]

I never said you don't have to justify yourself to the public in 'any manner'- I said you don't have to justify yourself to BYSTANDERS... and from experience it can be detrimental to do so- giving the public a target to direct its frustration on. But if you describe common sense preventing a riot or public disorder confrontation by dis-engaging from the public directly at an emergency scene as "self-righteous and arrogant" then it's a great thing we don't operate together.

I don't think I'd go as far to say the scene in the video was on the verge of a riot or even public disorder. Clearly, the bystanders were upset with what they were hearing from the firefighters, and from my viewpoint, rightfully so. With more attention to self control from the firefighters, I tend to believe it would have helped tempered the situation. I think in any event, the bystanders should have been given an apology for horrible behavior with hat in hand. And maybe they were given an apology -- we didn't get to see the entire event to conclusion.

 

[irishboxer384]

I don't think I'd go as far to say the scene in the video was on the verge of a riot or even public disorder.

I don't think it was on the verge of a riot or public disorder either- but how quickly in these situations do things escalate? Being distracted by an angry member/members of the public can quickly deteriorate a situation. Yes there was bad language, but that doesn't warrant the local dept issuing a public apology for it's bad language, more of a 'lessons learned' briefing would have been more useful in the long term. But that's my lowly opinion and this is an internet forum.

10 people can watch the same video and come out with very different opinions, as a producer I'm sure you're much more aware of this than me!

 

[karaya]

I understand about the distraction part. Keep focused, stay on patient care. But, if time permits, take a moment to interact and offer an explanation to the bystanders. A GOOD communicator can get a lot of negative impressions turned around real quick. I do it all the time. We're filming with EMS on a cardiac arrest call on a side walk and the bystanders are watching from the sides and they see us with the medics filming. Sometimes I'll hear remarks of disapproval from the crowd. After the call is finished, I always take a few moments and introduce myself to the dissenters and explain who we are and how our footage is used to educate EMT's and paramedics. It's amazing to see how quickly this changes their negative perceptions about our filming to a positive one. It's this type of interaction that can leave lasting impressions and it's that same type of communication emergency services needs to learn.

I've spent several weeks working the riots here in Ferguson, and many of the mistakes I've seen by the police in particular, was their failure to effectively communicate. Especially with the media which eventually backlashed on the police with inaccurate information being distributed by the press. I observed this first hand from day one of the rioting and I was stunned how law enforcement never caught on to this. We may be going into "round two" of this any day now and it will be interesting if they learned anything from their mistakes.

 

[irishboxer384]

I understand about the distraction part. Keep focused, stay on patient care. But, if time permits, take a moment to interact and offer an explanation to the bystanders. A GOOD communicator can get a lot of negative impressions turned around real quick. I do it all the time. We're filming with EMS on a cardiac arrest call on a side walk and the bystanders are watching from the sides and they see us with the medics filming. Sometimes I'll hear remarks of disapproval from the crowd. After the call is finished, I always take a few moments and introduce myself to the dissenters and explain who we are and how our footage is used to educate EMT's and paramedics. It's amazing to see how quickly this changes their negative perceptions about our filming to a positive one. It's this type of interaction that can leave lasting impressions and it's that same type of communication emergency services needs to learn.

I've spent several weeks working the riots here in Ferguson, and many of the mistakes I've seen by the police in particular, was their failure to effectively communicate. Especially with the media which eventually backlashed on the police with inaccurate information being distributed by the press. I observed this first hand from day one of the rioting and I was stunned how law enforcement never caught on to this. We may be going into "round two" of this any day now and it will be interesting if they learned anything from their mistakes.

I understand and agree, but journalists are often seen as a neutral party in conflicted areas. Turning up to any crisis in any uniform is always going to come with stigma attached- especially the police...rightly or wrongly. I think with emergency services it is merely the fact you are in the public eye and more liable to scrutiny than other professions.

I personally find the police in the US alot more aggressive than in the uk- even in Northern Ireland where they dealt with constant threat of snipers, bombings and shootings all whilst doing regular police work...they knew when to turn on the aggressive/passive stance. In this situation though (the video posted), other than bad language I don't think the crew did anything wrong, post video one of the crew might well have spoken with the family/neighbours as you suggested but this doesn't make quite a good news story.

 

[avdrummerboy]

These are hard to armchair quarterback, regardless if it's police, fire, whomever. Not seeing the whole incident and only seeing the aftermath, there's not much to say. You have to look at it from the fire guys perspective, those of us in this game long enough have been there; we've been swung at, spit on, etc. We know the rush that you get and much like a law enforcement officer I'm going home at the end of my shift alive and in one piece. So from that end, yes, being defensive is okay, the force seemed reasonable given that we know that he was violent (pretty sure we've all woken up the beast with narcan at least once!) The verbal abuse from the fire captain is not needed and should require some form of formal discipline, we need to be able to act under pressure in situations like this and do so calmly, the constant barrage of swearing and telling family and bystanders to 'get the f*** back' and 'stop recording me,' not gonna fly in the public or department eye. Fire/ EMS is the only public service that aren't **normally** seen as 'the bad guys.' That perspective of our line of work will change quickly with guys like this at the wheel.