Gotham Medic
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What is your team doing for Ebola?
- Thread starter Gotham Medic
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Gotham Medic
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You blowing this place up @Gotham Medic
We just got new guidelines from the county at my 911 volly squad. Dispatchers ask ebola related questions and screen anyone that qualifies so the hazmat fire guys take the call - they are the ones with the appropriate PPE. In addition if dispatch doesn't catch it but we roll up on someone who exhibits symptoms plus has traveled to an ebola-effected country we head back to the ambulance and radio dispatch who will send the aforementioned fire guys. We then head to the hospital with our unit out of service and get ourselves deconned and put onto a watch list!
IFT has not sent out anything related to ebola. I would laugh if they did.
We just got new guidelines from the county at my 911 volly squad. Dispatchers ask ebola related questions and screen anyone that qualifies so the hazmat fire guys take the call - they are the ones with the appropriate PPE. In addition if dispatch doesn't catch it but we roll up on someone who exhibits symptoms plus has traveled to an ebola-effected country we head back to the ambulance and radio dispatch who will send the aforementioned fire guys. We then head to the hospital with our unit out of service and get ourselves deconned and put onto a watch list!
IFT has not sent out anything related to ebola. I would laugh if they did.
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HazMat is a combination of EMTs and paramedics. On MSOU we're all paramedics.
We have an expanded scope from our field medics, with constant training from our MD fellows. We also train with SWAT and make stand-offs and raids with them. We train with HazMat for rehab, decon, and threat assessment. And a few of us also do Helo rescue. We're training on something every shift, and often on our days off.
Our own department's HazMat team. We're actually all stationed in the same house (HazMat and MSOU). Well, at one of our two HazMat stations.
Gotham Medic
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PC'd
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Man, this sounds amazing. Mommm, I wanna be on MSOU too!!
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We now have an isolation ambulance at my part time city job (name publicly withheld). It's not in service yet since they haven't figured out how to not make it 100% airtight and asphyxiate patients. I went to a PPE class yesterday. The suits ripped when they demonstrated the donning procedure. More than half of our employees will likely not fit into the suits, which as of yesterday no longer even meet CDC recommendations and are "semi liquid resistant. Yesterday the procedure was to respond, put the suits on, enter, extricate the patient to the isolation rig, and transport. Today we were advised to just wait outside and presumably now city fire hazmat paramedics will deal with it. At my mountain jobs we are just waiting for it to blow over. If we actually had a patient with symptoms I think we would just call the city.
Gotham Medic
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Wow! What a diverse spectrum of preparedness levels.
On a scale of 0 to 10 with zero being the worst...
I give my agency an 8 on preparedness. I"ve been observing whats going on behind the curtain at my job and i can say we were slow to start but are catching up strong.
We have good PPE and plenty of it. How our haz mat medics and EMT's are employed has evolved... but now these jobs are all ours which i prefer. We have great support from the fire haz mat side for our decon.
On a scale of 0 to 10 with zero being the worst...
I give my agency an 8 on preparedness. I"ve been observing whats going on behind the curtain at my job and i can say we were slow to start but are catching up strong.
We have good PPE and plenty of it. How our haz mat medics and EMT's are employed has evolved... but now these jobs are all ours which i prefer. We have great support from the fire haz mat side for our decon.
TransportJockey
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As much as I don't wanna do fire you're making me rethink that
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You're crazy. Even with our expanded scope, our protocols don't touch yours right now.
And while we're fire-based, once you're in EMS they take away your bunker gear and you become a single-role medic.
TransportJockey
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Single role with special teams sounds fun. I like the technical aspects of fire... basically everything but interior attack.
Gotham Medic
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(Our service has for many decades been a stepping stone to the much higher paid firefighter and police officer jobs. No multi-role firefighter medics in NYC.)
Gotham Medic
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a very sensative subject. sorry.
This is off-topic, but in case you're new to the whole message board thing it is bad form to post again if you're the last one who posted. I would recommend either containing all of your disparate thoughts in a single post, or if you think of something to add after you've already hit the "Post" button, click the little blue link under your post that says "Edit". It's active for ten minutes after you posted, and will allow you to add something to a post you've already made. "Double posting" as it's known is poor forum etiquette.
Not holding it against you because I think you're new to the entire experience, but something to keep in mind for the future!
MonkeyArrow
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I always thought that the edit period was longer...has it changed recently?