Taking a wrong turn

46Young said:
That's beyond dangerous. Going against flow should only be used as a last resort. The one true way to make up time is getting out of the station as quickly as possible. Know at least the general direction that you're heading, and have your partner look up the directions quickly. With anything else regarding emergency driving, the risks may outweigh the benefits.
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That assumes you run out of a station....

Anyway, we have mapbooks (Thomas Guide), less clumbersome than PapaBear's. When dispatched, at the end of the address, we get the page and grid numbers. Assuming the driver knows the area, the attending/navigator can give the major cross streets in or near the grid to get you started. Even if the driver doesn't know the area very well, if the navigator does, they can get the driver started while they find the actual street. This all eliminates the issue of punching in, or looking up Independence Blvd vs S Independence Blvd, and being on the wrong side of the city.

And, yes, I have taken wrong turns, it happens, hopefully your partner knows the area well enough to point it out before you get too far out of position.
 
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Sapphyre said:
That assumes you run out of a station....

Anyway, we have mapbooks (Thomas Guide), less clumbersome than PapaBear's. When dispatched, at the end of the address, we get the page and grid numbers. Assuming the driver knows the area, the attending/navigator can give the major cross streets in or near the grid to get you started. Even if the driver doesn't know the area very well, if the navigator does, they can get the driver started while they find the actual street. This all eliminates the issue of punching in, or looking up Independence Blvd vs S Independence Blvd, and being on the wrong side of the city.

And, yes, I have taken wrong turns, it happens, hopefully your partner knows the area well enough to point it out before you get too far out of position.
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That's much the same way we are dispatched. Don't get me wrong, the mapbook is great once you get within that grid. A lot of subdivisions spring up overnight around Virginia Beach, and the mapbook is updated every two weeks to accommodate. Once or twice, I've had a address on a call that didn't show up on the GPS. But on the dispatch report on the computer, it gives us the map page it's on, and the nearest cross street.

For example: We're typing in, say, "1234 Breakneck Rd.," the GPS will stop us at "Breakn" and will give us the options of "Breakneck Rd," "Breaknook Rd.," or "Breakneck Ln." We go to punch in the address, and the GPS tells us there is no such address on Breakneck Rd. or Breakneck Ln. So we use the nearest cross street, and type in "Independence and Columbus." GPS routes us to that intersection, and we get moving while the navigator opens up this gigantic, obnoxious mapbook (not much room in that cab already without having this big bulky thing on your lap) and turns to the page, in this case E4. He finds the street, and we find we go past Columbus on Independence and turn right on Truman, and left onto Breakneck Ln, and right on Breakneck Road. Tada, we're there and they are flagging us down.

It's all a useful tool, especially if you have a big area, you're going out of your area, or you are just new to the area. And since I have never been blessed with a sense of direction, I have no problem using technology to help me supplement my abilities and overcome my deficiencies.
 
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Chrissy88 said:
Hi everyone,

Not sure if this is the right section of the forum to post this question or if this is a silly question...

If get a call and you're driving the ambulance to the location, but you accidentally took a wrong turn and it took you some time to get back on track, but with that time lost, the patient ended up dying....what type of legal reprecussions would there be, if any?
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The family could try to sue, but the family can try to sue for anything. They would have to prove that had you not gotten lost, the patient would've survived, a kind of hefty undertaking considering if the patient was that sensitive that a few minutes made a huge impact, they were likely to die anyway.

I got lost a few times during my brief 911 stent, no one really noticed. Also I love my GPS, got it when I was doing private IFT. Has not steered me wrong yet, despite everyone crying foul. To me it's faster than a mapbook.
 
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I use a Lorean. If I can get it up to 88 mph, than I never have a problem with time. However for some reason Lebanonese terrorists show up.
 
Sasha said:
Also I love my GPS, got it when I was doing private IFT. Has not steered me wrong yet, despite everyone crying foul. To me it's faster than a mapbook.
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My god, we agree with each other. The GPS has only failed me once. Well, three times, if you count it thinking that a creek that went through the middle of a neighborhood had a bridge over it when it didn't. Took me a grand total of thirty seconds to go around the block.

As long as you know how to use the mapbook in case the GPS fails, I don't see why it's a problem.
 
PapaBear434 said:
Fail. It's DeLorean.

I appriciate the joke, but I will not let you run haphazardly all over my fondest childhood memories. :P

http://www.delorean.com/
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Don't worry. We can go back in time, fix it, and enter a branch off of this reality where the mistake never happened.
 
Chrissy88 said:
If get a call and you're driving the ambulance to the location, but you accidentally took a wrong turn and it took you some time to get back on track, but with that time lost, the patient ended up dying....what type of legal reprecussions would there be, if any?
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The last major delay we had was actually due to a combination of technology and the 911 caller messing up, so I don't think they could have held us responsible. The call was from a cell phone, so no address was tied to it in the dispatch system. They caller gave the address, nature of emergency and hung up. Well, it just so happens that street exists both in our area, and the neighboring ambulance's area, but a good 30 miles apart from each other. It's not like the street crosses the border. They dispatched us, and we (us and the fire engine) looked for a good 10 minutes for the place (while keeping dispatch updated).

They tried recontacting the caller with no luck. Finally about 20 minutes after the initial 911 call the caller called back, and they were able to find out what city she was in and able to dispatch the right agency.
 
the GPS systems still don't show a new neighborhood in my old area; and it has been almost a year.
 
johnrsemt said:
the GPS systems still don't show a new neighborhood in my old area; and it has been almost a year.
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Did you buy a map update???
 
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