How many times have you been dispatched to a man down or an “arrest”

Amberlamps916

Amberlamps916

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when it was just somebody sleeping? Do people not check to make sure the person is breathing or what? This has happened to me quite a few times and I'm curious to hear stories from you guys.
 
Easily a hundred times.

More than I could possibly recall.

Welcome to EMS. This is the job.
 
I understand and accept it's part of the job. I'm just perplexed at the situations I've been in where the person is obviously not dead. I had one where the guy was in his car, seat reclined, with his hands resting underneath his head. C'mon now. I was curious to hear some funny stories regarding the topic.

P.S. I fully expect to one day get a "Man Down" call to a guy sleeping on a hammock.:rofl:
 
Addrobo87 said:
I understand and accept it's part of the job. I'm just perplexed at the situations I've been in where the person is obviously not dead. I had one where the guy was in his car, seat reclined, with his hands resting underneath his head. C'mon now. I was curious to hear some funny stories regarding the topic.

P.S. I fully expect to one day get a "Man Down" call to a guy sleeping on a hammock.:rofl:
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I was sleeping in my reclined seat at a freeway rest stop and somebody called 911 and said i was dead.

I was woken up by about 10 state troopers.
 
My wife got off work around 1 am or so. One the way home she stopped by the station to visit my partner and I. About 5 min after she left the station she calls me creaking out that there was a dead person on the sidewalk... Was around 2:30 and in the middle of winter, it was very cold outside. I told her to hang up and call 911 and that were were heading there. On the way our toughbook keeps updating. Caller refusues to leave car to check on pt......... Caller pulled car beside pt and found not wake him by yelling..........caller honking horn... No responce from pt. On arrival police have the guy up and cancel us.

My partner and I were joking with her later. She was terrified to get out of the car and check on the guy, panicked and called me instead of 911. She was actually mad that i made her hang up and call them.
 
Often enough, we have a decent homeless population especially after Sandy. I've come to accept it. Most are passer bys who don't get out of their cars.

What confuses me is how often we go to nursing homes for this.
 
Veneficus said:
Easily a hundred times.

More than I could possibly recall.

Welcome to EMS. This is the job.
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This.

Everyone wants to be a good samaritan but no one wants to get out of the car to actually see if there is something wrong with the urban outdoorsman on the corner or if he is just napping.


I've gotten called for whats actually a garbage bag on the ground as a man down before too...
 
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I was dispatched to a scrap yard for a possible homeless person sleeping in a car. We got there and the person was DOA and had been that way for at least 3 weeks in 80* heat.
 
To add to my previous post. We have a very low homeless population in the communities I work. Most times we get these calls are for drunks or objects that someone thinks might be a person. The other calls we get are for a mvcs where a person is taking a leak or lost or just pulled over. Most times they are gone or very surprised to see us pull up.
 
A bunch of times.

Usually they wake up and are just as confused as we are.

Once in a while they actually "wake up dead".

2 stick in my memory. One I was the caller:
It's 4am New Year's Day, I'm at WalMart after work, and park next to a car that's idling with someone passed out in the drivers seat. When I came out a few minutes later, I tried my car horn, even banging on the window. Called 911. Local PD showed up and dealt with it - I'm pretty sure there was alcohol involved.

2nd:
Dispatched for subject passed out in a vehicle. Was in the middle of the road at an intersection, as if he was taking a left out of a neighborhood onto a secondary road. I blew the air horn - no response. As we got him out of the vehicle, it was still IN GEAR!
Want a shocker? He failed the Narcan Test. But no, he didn't do any drugs.
 
Almost every shift.
 
at least a dozen times per shift. more often than not, they are 3rd party calls from "concerned citizens."

maybe 1/20 are legit calls (require more than knocking on a window or shaking the guy to wake him up). Most of the time people are napping or drunk.

1/100 is a life threatening/DOA call
 
Every day. Sometimes multiple times a day.

If the caller can't verify if the patient is breathing EMD will kick it out as an arrest.

"Medic 424 respond priority 2 for an unknown problem, man down at blah blah blah blah"
"Medic 424 your call is now priority 1, life status questionable"
"Medic 424 your call has been reconfigured, priority 1, cardiac arrest, caller unable to verify if the pt is breathing, caller refusing to preform pre-arrivals". or my favorite "pre-arrivals in progress...umm...we an hear someone yelling 'get off me' in the background, call is still priority 1" and you get there to find a bystander holding a bum to the ground trying to do compressions on him while he fights back.

"Medic 424...you've been cancelled by PD on scene, please return to post" is usually how they end up though.
 
I saw an RN "call a code" one time in the ED and as she started doing chest compressions the patient looked up at her and was like "ouch, that hurts." Turns out there was something wrong with the monitor so it began alarming and showed asystole.. guess that whole "pulse and respiration thing" was a missed some how. The guy was just sleeping until he had his ribs cracked.
 
schulz said:
I saw an RN "call a code" one time in the ED and as she started doing chest compressions the patient looked up at her and was like "ouch, that hurts." Turns out there was something wrong with the monitor so it began alarming and showed asystole.. guess that whole "pulse and respiration thing" was a missed some how. The guy was just sleeping until he had his ribs cracked.
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I responded to the same nursing home twice in the same day to code the same person.

I thought it was just my divine presence that was bringing him back to life...


Anyway, I count it as 2 saves. Cardiac arrest to refusing transport on scene in less than 5 minutes both times.


I am king...
 
Every other call since 1995.
 
We get waived down a lot by "concerned citizens" when I'm working Boston. "Hey can you go check that guy out, he looks dead." Walk over, ask the person to wake up, if no answer shake shoulder. Drunk person wakes up, yells at us, we apologize, and drive away.
 
Tigger said:
We get waived down a lot by "concerned citizens" when I'm working Boston. "Hey can you go check that guy out, he looks dead." Walk over, ask the person to wake up, if no answer shake shoulder. Drunk person wakes up, yells at us, we apologize, and drive away.
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Haha yes sir! Every time! Usually don't have to make it passed the shouting step. Maybe kick their boot while you shout if you see an empty 40 in their hand :rofl:
 
If I go to wake up a drunk or someone sleeping in their car, that's a patient contact and I have to write an ALS report.

I try to let BLS get there first. It's not that I'm lazy, but if I don't see the patient, it's not a patient contact and I don't have to write a useless, needless report.

The "man down" called in by a "concerned citizen" is usually a huge waste of time.
 
PoeticInjustice said:
Haha yes sir! Every time! Usually don't have to make it passed the shouting step. Maybe kick their boot while you shout if you see an empty 40 in their hand :rofl:
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Sometimes I use their empty bottle to tap their shoe, it's just too perfect.
 
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