Paramedic suspended after letting trainee try to save patient who was already dead

MMiz

MMiz

I put the M in EMTLife
Community Leader
Messages
5,586
Reaction score
452
Points
83
MMiz said:
Paramedic suspended after letting trainee try to save patient who was already dead

John Backhouse drove the ambulance to hospital while his junior colleague tried to resuscitate the patient with CPR and adrenalin.

Unknown to the trainee the man had already passed away.

Backhouse insisted he had already told his colleague that the patient had died and claimed that leaving him with the body was "a perfect life experience example".

Read more!
Click to expand...


And now, the Paramedic is getting the perfect suspension experience :P
 
Happens too often. These are worse than show codes; because the purpose isn't even as well intentioned as "Let's give the family hope." It is selfish, hurts people, shows a lack of respect for the patient, and hurts peoples opinion of EMS.

A local Firefighter and I were talking this last month and he told me that he (a FF/EMT for only 3 months) had already seen this; where a Paramedic let his Intern continue to run a code on an elderly patient with a significant medical history despite the fact that the patient was confirmed to have been down for over an hour. Fire had already ceased efforts when the Ambo pulled up. Death was obvious to everyone, but the medic ordered the Intern to continue efforts. They transported code to the Hospital where the patient was pronounced minutes after entering the door.

They tortured the patient who needed respect and dignity.

They tortured the fmaily with false hope.

They took a Ambo (one out of only 4) and 2 Engines out of service for a prolonged time.

They endangered the lives of the Responders and the Public with a needless Code 3 return.

They put a strain on an already overwhelmed Hospital and EMS system.

Why? For the benifit of the Intern? If that is the kind of guidence that the Medic is providing the Intern, then I question what type of Medic that Intern will turn out to be. And it has lowered my opinion of at least one Medic I know locally.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Can I just point out that anyone who has suffered a cardiac arrest is already dead......
 
downunderwunda said:
Can I just point out that anyone who has suffered a cardiac arrest is already dead......
Click to expand...

Alright, let's all jump on wunders family like gorillas...seems pretty gross and disrespectful an hour after the person died :sad:
 
<ARMCHAIR QB>

What happened to the trainee? I know that if I pulled something like this, I would be in hot water right along with my preceptor. Obviously the medic bears the brunt of the responsibility here, but that trainee is an idiot if there were obvious signs of death (i.e. death in the field protocol applied). Regardless of what the medic told him, isn't the trainee at least partly responsible for his actions? We have people in authority tell us to do things wrong/outside of our SOP all the time, but it doesn't mean we do them (e.g. med director orders 2g of morphine instead of 2mg because he's half asleep).

</ARMCHAIR QB>

I wasn't there and I don't have the full story, but it sounds a bit skewed to me.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top