When the rig DOESN'T respond.

WuLabsWuTecH said:
Wow, coming from a densely populated urban area with 100% paid services and 100% ALS rigs, these seem like long dispatch times.
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Yeah, but you gotta love that country livin'!
 
Yeah... you gotta love the times when a trip to the ER in the middle of the night and dead of winter, with snow up and over the running boards and the temp somewhere below freezing takes three hours... and the pt is a cardiac case... and your medic runs out of drugs due to duration of trip.
 
ILemt said:
Yeah... you gotta love the times when a trip to the ER in the middle of the night and dead of winter, with snow up and over the running boards and the temp somewhere below freezing takes three hours... and the pt is a cardiac case... and your medic runs out of drugs due to duration of trip.
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Medic? We wouldn't have ALS available on a call like that. You are lucky!
 
ILemt said:
and your medic runs out of drugs due to duration of trip.
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ouch. what was your transport time? what was going on that required more meds than you where stocked with? at least for us we have an ample supply, but our tx times are never that long.
 
mikie333 said:
ouch. what was your transport time? what was going on that required more meds than you where stocked with? at least for us we have an ample supply, but our tx times are never that long.
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As I said; three hours and then some, due to a blizzard occuring that night.
There were no plows out that night and I literally broke trail with the ambulance in blowing snow up to three feet deep getting to the ER. We ended up camping out at the hospital until dawn, then headed back. As for what the drugs were; I have no idea, I was driving. But I can also tell you that the monitor went through several batteries. I do know however that ever since that incident, that particular service carries a spare drug kit on board, along with a spare Lifepak.
 
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ILemt said:
As I said; three hours and then some, due to a blizzard occuring that night.
There were no plows out that night and I literally broke trail with the ambulance in blowing snow up to three feet deep getting to the ER. We ended up camping out at the hospital until dawn, then headed back. As for what the drugs were; I have no idea, I was driving. But I can also tell you that the monitor went through several batteries. I do know however that ever since that incident, that particular service carries a spare drug kit on board, along with a spare Lifepak.
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An enitre spare lifepak? What model of lifepak are you using? Can't you just carry a lot of extra batteries for it? We use the 12's (and 10's but i'm not a medic so i only use the 12's) and we're required to have 2 fresh batteries in the unit at the start of the day and 2 extra batteries. Since I like to leave my monitor on after vitals, I usually take 4-6 spare with me.

In my city we're always less than 10 minutes from the hospital so the private BLS rigs sometimes don't call for ALS since they'd be at or very close to the hospital by the time the backup got there.
 
Around me, some ALS services have 2 paramedics on fly cars... they carry 2 sets of ALS gear on the vehicle, so that they can each take care of their own patients.

These days, many places that went to LP12's have a spare LP10 (or several).
 
0 minutes : initial tone out

if no response after 2 min: re-tone (2nd Alert)

if still no response after 4 min: re-tone (3rd Alert)

county police ambulance ( ALS ) is also dispatched at that time or mutual aid dept if county bus is unavailable
 
The way it works where i from is that my volunteer dept. Gets 1 tone along with a mutual aid company, on the second tone they dispatch the same. If by the 3rd tone there is no responce then the medic unit will handle the transport
 
in my area, we get 2 minutes to respond....or at least acknowledge the call, let county know that crew is en route(if running with vollies), after that, 2 more minutes to get responding. if we arent responding by 4 mins, they tone out 2nd due. (and us paid guys get our a$$es ripped for not getting out of bed quick enough lol) but we're usually pretty good at getting out before getting double-toned. even if it IS a BSer at 0400. lol:rolleyes:
 
WuLabsWuTecH said:
An enitre spare lifepak? What model of lifepak are you using? Can't you just carry a lot of extra batteries for it? We use the 12's (and 10's but i'm not a medic so i only use the 12's) and we're required to have 2 fresh batteries in the unit at the start of the day and 2 extra batteries. Since I like to leave my monitor on after vitals, I usually take 4-6 spare with me.

In my city we're always less than 10 minutes from the hospital so the private BLS rigs sometimes don't call for ALS since they'd be at or very close to the hospital by the time the backup got there.
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Yes we have spare batteries, but we also have a spare lifepak, so that we can monitor two at a time. They are both L10's
 
Ped stuck under 1972 Cutlass Supreme, my partner there with him holding O2 on him,

and the extrication truck is cross town.
Traffic cop had five drunk student bystanders grab the front bumper and LIFT. Iscootedf in real fast so if they dropped it I could jump aside to offer a way out of that picket of legs.
Boy did HIS eyes get wide when that streetlight reached them!:blink:
 
With My agency we have 5 stations in the county; 3 being paid. The other 2 are volunteers. When Station 3 or Station 4(volunteers) have a call, they instantly drop our tones too(Station 1). Station 4 doesn't have a Station because the county, I suppose, has more to do than build another rescue station,so Medic 40(station 4) sits at the rescue chiefs house and her friend is right down the road, so usually about the time we are hitting the overpass they have Medic 40 enroute. Station 3&4 have same tones, everybody at Station 3 works full time jobs so their truck is basically in a grave yard. Medic 40 ends up having to take the call for them if we don't.
 
oh, and to answer your question Jon; we can respond in a response truck- which for the paid stations is the second run truck. It isn't alllllll to uncommon to hear: "Respone 40 county, enroute". But usually about 2-3 minutes later it turns into Medic 40 because she picks her friend up. For a truck that has a EMT-Enhanced, the truck is called, "Trauma 10(for station 1), Trauma 20(for station 2) etc. But the even numbers are always the staffed trucks(wierd I know). Medic 50, Medic 20, and Medic 10 are the paid staffed trucks. If they have a second team call then it goes by whoever the highest rank in the truck is. If it were two Basics, it would be "Rescue 11, Rescue 21, Rescue 51, " etc. A basic and a intermediate or a Paramedic would be "Medic 10" "Medic" only used by us if there is a Medic on board and CAN tech. You get where I'm going
 
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in my fd ems it is 2 voice pages then another unit is sent they then voice page you another time and then call the station and notify your bat chief and send another unit to cover until your status can be determined

it has happened here before and the crew got fired lmfao
 
For the few remaining VEMS agencies in Atlantic County,
0:00-Tones
0:02-2nd request
0:04-Next closest.

Then when the MVA with pin in comes out 10 min later, you get all rigs filled and rolled.

:angry:
 
Most counties neaby re-tone after 5 minutes. The volunteer ambulance companies nearby will be toned out twice, after which they'll send the next closest ambulance.
 
Since we are a MICU/BLS department, our BLS units have contracts with towns and their volunteer companies. Depending on the contract depened on the time of dispatch. One town in particular, their tones are:

0000-First tone
0004-second tone
0005-We start heading toward the town which is aprox 8-10mins away
0006-Third and final tone
0008-Our dispatch

Other towns, our contract state we are the unit and therefore their is just one page out.
 
motownems said:
I am an attendant/assistant for a vollie ambulance service in the town where I go to college. It is a very rural area (think one stop light town).

Anyways we have mutual support agreements with the surrounding ambulances services. As I understand it, if no one acknowledges Control after the fourth page out, Control will then page out one of the agencies we have mutual support agreements with. That being said I am not aware of the last time this has actually happened.

As far as staffing goes; EMT and driver minimum… however depending on were the EMT/Medic is coming from they might link up with the rig on scene.
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ditto here. Our pages go out every 1 minute. No answer than mutual aide page goes out
 
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