Medic dumps patient off gurney on purpose

I agree we should discuss stress more in medic school, but still...

Can't it be okay to set boundaries on behavior, without necessarily knowing all the reasons for that behavior?

In my most recent EMS job in the entertainment industry, if I had cursed at a customer/patient for whatever reason, I probably would have been fired. Maybe I would have been having a bad day, maybe I'd never done it before and would never do it again, but I still would have crossed the boundary of acceptable behavior in that job. If there were a video showing me doing that, instead of just gossip and suspicion about what I'd done, that would have made the decision pretty easy for my employers. I would have broken the "don't mistreat the customers" rule -- hardly a controversial policy or one that would not be a component of common sense in that environment.

It is true that people who are given second chances after acting aberrantly sometimes do better and might never commit the same offense again, but why should a company have to take that risk and incur those expenses when there's a video showing what happened? Not showing why, just showing what. We're not speculating about the what and we can't fix all the whys.

I think a reasonable course of action is for the stretcher-dumper to accept responsibility, take whatever punishment is handed out, and seek help privately if he feels he needs to do better. The chances are remarkably good that he will be able to continue in EMS if he wants to.
 
Honestly, the world does come down to your actions. The circumstances can matter, to an extent. If we look at a more extreme example, for the sake of argument, homicide. Let's say a guy (1) kept on getting his house burglarized by the same person over and over. Guy 1 carries a gun for self defense. One day, he is walking down the road when he sees the burglar also just walking down the street and decides to confront him. Guy 2 flips him off and tries to continue on his way. Guy 1 gets angry and pulls out his gun and shoots him.

When it comes to trial, the guy burglarizing my house is not a valid defense to shooting him when he was not actively in the act of stealing from you. You're still going to be guilty of some sort of murder. Sure, there are degrees of murder, and mitigating and aggregating factors during sentencing, but it is without question that guy 1 is guilty of homicide.

At a point, there has to be a line where we draw the line for making excuses and looking at circumstances and just accept what happened and say it shouldn't have. Guy 1 shouldn't of shot guy 2, even though guy 1 has been victimized by guy 2 in the past. The medic in question should not of flipped the patient off of the gurney. Unfortunately, I think it is as simple as this. It shouldn't have happened. Under the circumstances presented to us, there was no justification to flip the gurney and be in the right. Similarly, there is no justification for shooting guy 2 unless he is trying to break into your home, while you're in it, and you must shoot him in self defense. It's just that simple.
 
Thanks for the post but I disagree...I too am focused on harm to society and future patients. What happened has happened, now I am discussing prevention, prevention of harm to your two concerns and my three concerns.

Glad you acknowledge there is an issue...now how do we fix it?
 
MonkeyArrow said:
At a point, there has to be a line where we draw the line for making excuses and looking at circumstances and just accept what happened and say it shouldn't have. Guy 1 shouldn't of shot guy 2, even though guy 1 has been victimized by guy 2 in the past. The medic in question should not of flipped the patient off of the gurney. Unfortunately, I think it is as simple as this. It shouldn't have happened. Under the circumstances presented to us, there was no justification to flip the gurney and be in the right. Similarly, there is no justification for shooting guy 2 unless he is trying to break into your home, while you're in it, and you must shoot him in self defense. It's just that simple.
Click to expand...

Again, no one is saying that guy one would be justified in shooting guy 2, or that this medic was justified in tossing this guy off the stretcher.

You can't deny that circumstances play a big role in these situations. What if guy 2 terrorized and threatened guy 1 to the point that guy 1 was convinced that guy 2 was going to kill him next time he came to his house? What if guy 1 had done everything right to that point - gone to the cops multiple times, talked to lawyers, etc, and guy 2 was still burglarizing his house and threatening him? Would that make a difference? Yeah, I think it might, or at least it should. It doesn't necessarily justify shooting him unarmed in the street, but it changes the storyline quite a bit.

Of course this is hypothetical, but those are exactly the kinds of important details that you often don't get from a news article, and exactly why jumping to conclusions and just assuming someone is a complete dirtbag when you don't know anything about what went on is a bad thing.
 
akflightmedic said:
This is what boggles my mind. Someone does exactly what they should do to be healthy and we destroy them. Just because we personally do not or have not yet felt that way, we lack comprehension of it and refuse to have empathy.

We in EMS do not make it acceptable for our fellow workers to get the healthcare they need. We turn our backs on them.
Click to expand...
What exactly are you saying? We, as a profession, should accept this behavior because he was under so much mental anguish? I'm pretty sure you aren't, but I'm not entirely sure right now....

If your buddy (or anyone actually) were to get help, i would support him 100%. Would I ***** about him taking several months off? absolutely, because I (and the rest of my coworkers) need to work more to pick up his slack. But as long as he or she comes back better, more power to him. But that has to be before an incident.

Think of it this way: would you support your coworker who had a drug/alcohol problem? if he wanted to get help for their problem? I would imagine you would, as would we all. Now, what about when he comes to work drunk or under the influence, and gets behind the wheel of the ambulance? would you support his termination or want to support him getting help and returning to work? There needs to be a consequence to his actions, regardless of the underlying cause.

I support his termination, and I support him surrendering his license. He probably doesn't deserve to be in jail, but if he never steps foot on an ambulance again, I won't shed a tear. It sucks that it happened, and I'm hoping he gets the help he needs.

I agree with what others have said about the situation. He doesn't want to get off my gurney in the lobby? Cool. I'll lower the gurney to the ground, I'll call security/pd, dispatch, and my supervisor to just let them know. Then I'll grab a chair and sit. I'll finish my paperwork and then I'll start watching some TV until the patient is removed from the gurney by PD or security. I get paid by the hour, no matter how many calls I go on. And if I need to write an incident report explaining my actions, well, it's better than flipping the patient off the cot.
 
Ok, I'm imagining I'm Guy 1 and I'm convinced Guy 2 is going to kill me; I throw him off the stretcher? I just can't imagine that being the reaction of most EMS providers. I've considered hitting patients and cursing at patients and running away from patients, but never throwing them off the stretcher. During five years of supervising a regulatory EMS agency in a large system, with about 600,000 calls in that stretch, I never heard of that happening.

Isn't part of the problem here that these what-if scenarios are getting a bit contrived? I can understand considering contributing factors to a point, but wouldn't you agree that the chances of the patient having robbed and threatened the medic are so slim that they shouldn't really be part of the analysis? Do we have to consider every conceivable explanation for aberrant behavior before taking action? I mean, if a teacher is caught on tape pulling the chair out from under my six-year-old, must I allow for the possibility that my kid reminded the teacher of a childhood bully, or that the teacher had been mugged by another six-year-old on the way to school that morning, or...

What are the chances? Must there be an imperative to consider every possible explanation before making a decision?

Isn't it much more likely (not certain -- just much more likely) that the medic in the video screwed up without extenuating circumstances that would justify such behavior? (Perhaps those circumstances would help explain the behavior, but not justify it.) If so, isn't it okay, even for those of us who weren't there, to say, based on the video, it was bad behavior?
 
I have made myself clear on what I find concerning and what I do and do not agree with.

Spinning this into an addiction issue obfuscates the point I am making and the awareness I am trying to evoke.

Mgr22 you posted while I was replying. I do not disagree with your last paragraph, however no consideration was given to the entire situation and what potentially caused it. It was Hang 'em high noon at the OK Corral as far as majority were concerned. This to me is concerning of our profession and I think it should be explored more.
 
akflightmedic said:
I have made myself clear on what I find concerning and what I do and do not agree with.

Spinning this into an addiction issue obfuscates the point I am making and the awareness I am trying to evoke.

Mgr22 you posted while I was replying. I do not disagree with your last paragraph, however no consideration was given to the entire situation and what potentially caused it. It was Hang 'em high noon at the OK Corral as far as majority were concerned. This to me is concerning of our profession and I think it should be explored more.
Click to expand...

Ok, good discussion, nice to have a forum for that.
 
There is no addition issue to obfuscate the point.... it's the underlying cause that you are discussing, and whether it be an addiction, long term stress, or poor upbringing, it doesn't excuse the actions that occurred. And actions have consequences.

akflightmedic said:
however no consideration was given to the entire situation and what potentially caused it. It was Hang 'em high noon at the OK Corral as far as majority were concerned. This to me is concerning of our profession and I think it should be explored more.
Click to expand...
the entire situation? he acted inappropriately. He handled the situation very poorly. It was completely uncalled for. It doesn't matter if the guy wouldn't get off the cot, or was verbally abusive, or they had been waiting 30 minutes..... His actions were inexcusable, and because of his actions, he found himself in the situation. I've considered the entire situation, and what potentially caused it, and it doesn't change my thoughts regarding what happened.

Your friend deserves to be fired. He deserves to lose his medic cert. His actions were inexcusable. Maybe now he will get some help, and find a new career. Shame he didn't get help beforehand, but his actions have consequences
 
Last edited:
And then we have that....and the cycle never ends..ba dump dump dump.

Cheers.
 
i think maybe some people are missing AK's point. Is the knee jerk reaction a lot of you seem to have, almost like you are better than someone else who is struggling and can therefore pass judgement.
 
Angel said:
i think maybe some people are missing AK's point. Is the knee jerk reaction a lot of you seem to have, almost like you are better than someone else who is struggling and can therefore pass judgement.
Click to expand...

"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in." I've always wanted to use that line -- thanks. :-)

Angel, when I think of a "knee-jerk reaction," I think of an action or reply that has little or no thought behind it. I feel a lot of thought is being given to this debate by almost everyone who's participated.

Also, I know it's unpopular to acknowledge, but we judge each other all the time. It's human nature. It doesn't have to be coupled to a sense of superiority. Perhaps the issue is Judgment with a capital J -- on what some would consider a Biblical level -- versus everyday judgment involving opinions like "I think he's right/wrong." Is there a problem with the latter? You're employing that sort of judgment, too, aren't you? I think that's healthy.
 
mgr22 said:
"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in." I've always wanted to use that line -- thanks. :)

Angel, when I think of a "knee-jerk reaction," I think of an action or reply that has little or no thought behind it. I feel a lot of thought is being given to this debate by almost everyone who's participated.

Also, I know it's unpopular to acknowledge, but we judge each other all the time. It's human nature. It doesn't have to be coupled to a sense of superiority. Perhaps the issue is Judgment with a capital J -- on what some would consider a Biblical level -- versus everyday judgment involving opinions like "I think he's right/wrong." Is there a problem with the latter? You're employing that sort of judgment, too, aren't you? I think that's healthy.
Click to expand...
Makes me think of that term "low-information voter".
 
AK, while I can certainly sympathize with the reasons that caused the buildup of stress to the snapping point in this particular medic, the fact remains that once he assaulted the patient, he crossed a line that cannot be uncrossed. Imagine if that was your father on the gurney, what would your reaction be to him suffering physical harm at the hands of the paramedic you entrust to take care of him, and prevent further harm?
 
Angel said:
i think maybe some people are missing AK's point. Is the knee jerk reaction a lot of you seem to have, almost like you are better than someone else who is struggling and can therefore pass judgement.
Click to expand...
It's not a knee-jerk reaction, at least for me, though I think you are accurate in using that term.

The guy did what he did. There very well may be some very extenuating circumstances that we aren't privy to (in fact even before AK spoke up I figured that was a certainty) but it doesn't change what happened. And I agree that it is very possible that he was having issues due to his job that may have been the root cause of this; that's a very realistic problem that everyone should be aware of and be ready to face if it comes to that.

But it doesn't excuse what he did. It may help to explain what happened, but it's not a justification. It also brings up the problem of, if this was due to a build up of stress, work related or not, doesn't the individual bear some responsibility for realizing there is a problem and trying to fix it (which may not be possible)? I say yes. Maybe this was the final straw...but I don't know if I believe it. And even if it was, while it explains the situation, and the guy should get as much help and support as he needs to get through this...he did what he did. There will be consequences. There are things that people do, that no matter the reason, you don't just get to shrug your shoulders and say "no big deal." Depending on the true circumstances of what happened the consequences here may have been overboard, and may make a bad situation worse, but that doesn't mean some type of punishment isn't right.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top