Too Old To Work, Too Young To Retire

2 EMTs, patient killed in Ga. ambulance crash

I have a lot of questions to which there are likely no answers. At least no definitive answers.

The Georgia State Patrol said in a news release that the wreck happened around 5 a.m. Thursday on state Highway 32, near the small town of Ocilla in south Georgia.

Where were they going at 0500 that required lights and sirens? Not to mention speed, which is often part of that package.

Authorities said the Coffee County ambulance was heading east with its lights and siren activated when the westbound semi jack-knifed across the centerline and into the path of the ambulance. The ambulance struck the left side of the semi.

The truck jack-knifed when a car ahead of it began to pull off the road, police said.

Just for the record, in case you weren’t aware of it, but lights and siren do not cause cessation of the laws of physics. The brakes don’t better, stopping distances aren’t shorter, big objects do not magically get out of your way. That goes for tractor trailers as well, even if they don’t have lights and siren. The car ahead of the tractor trailer pulled off the road and it’s likely that the driver hit the brakes hard because he was afraid that he was going to hit it. Which tells me that the driver was also going to fast, or not paying attention. Or both.

The emergency medical technicians were identified as Teresa Ann Davis, 44, of Axson, who was driving the ambulance; and Randall Whiddon, 56, of Ashburn, who was riding in the front passenger seat.

Now I’m getting confused. Or more confused. If both EMTs were sitting up front, who was in the back with the patient? Rather, was anyone in the back with the patient? There is no mention of a third EMT who was or wasn’t injured. That makes me think that there was no third EMT, because in an accident where three people were killed, it’s unlikely that someone else would be in the back and not be injured. If they weren’t injured, then surely there would have been some mention of that. So, if there was no one in the back with the patient, what was the emergency? Was the patient already dead? In many parts of the country dead people are transported to the morgue or somewhere by ambulance. Not in my neck of the woods these days, but it’s not uncommon in some areas. Or was the patient so stable that neither EMT needed to be in the back with him? Help me out if you can think of a third option. In either case, there wouldn’t seem to be ANY REASON AT ALL for using lights and sirens. None. Again, if any readers can think of something that I’m missing, please comment.

Thunderstorms were occurring over parts of Georgia early Thursday morning, though it was not immediately clear if weather was a factor in the crash.

Were the roads wet? Was it raining? We don’t know from the story, but  if the roads are wet and it’s raining, then the best thing to do is SLOW DOWN.

It’s unlikely that this story won’t get much more play than this. It’s a small story, except for the effect on the people left behind by the deceased. Still I’d like to know what happened, because there are likely lessons to be learned from this accident. If nothing else, we’ll learn some things NOT to do when operating emergency vehicles.

There are a lot of people who will preach that we need to make ambulances more safe, and I agree. What I disagree with is how to do that. Some people want more technology to make crashes less likely or more survivable. That’s fine, but the biggest advance in ambulance safety would be if we could get every EMT and paramedic to understand that driving fast is rarely necessary and usually counterproductive and dangerous.

EMS workers union charges that shift in way response time statistics are calculated misrepresents efficiency of agency

A new policy that changes the way EMS operators input emergency calls amounts to cooking the books, union officials charge.

An internal FDNY memo obtained by the Daily News orders workers to start the clock over in the middle of emergency calls that get more serious.

If someone reports a sick relative who doesn’t present any alarming symptoms, for example, the call would likely be classified as a low priority. But if the patient’s condition gets significantly worse — like a loss of consciousness — the call would be elevated to a high priority and an ambulance immediately dispatched.

The new policy — effective May 20 — tells 911 operators to start a fresh ticket when a call that’s waiting for an ambulance gets upgraded to high-priority status. That allows the FDNY to drop any earlier wait time from its final stats — and clock a faster response to the emergency.

Cooking the books? Bait and switch sounds more like it. So, if the patient condition changes while they are waiting for an ambulance OR the call was mistriaged the first time, they just dump the original call and put in a new one like time has stood still or something.

That way, they can claim a fast response for high priority calls and pretend that the original call never happened.

Only high-priority calls are counted by the FDNY in the department’s average response times. Priority calls for heart attack victims, nonresponsive patients or those with difficulty breathing get the fastest ambulance response times — usually less than six minutes. Lower-priority calls wait a longer period time for ambulances to arrive.

So, they are already playing fast and loose with their response statistics by only counting higher acuity calls in their calculations. I guess those non priority calls don’t matter. I wonder what else they are lying about? Cardiac arrest saves? Transport times to cath lab equipped hospitals?

The FDNY did not respond to a request for comment.

Of course not. It’s not like they are accountable to the citizenry. They get that attitude from the Mayor, no doubt.

“Sorry your loved one died, but it wasn’t our fault. We got there within six minutes after he stopped breathing. The time that he was ill, but still breathing doesn’t really count. It’s not as if not getting to the hospital quickly contributed to his death. Besides, if he was that sick, you should have called a cab.”

Love, FDNY.

Another great stride forward for fire service EMS.