Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Did Johnny and Roy have to deal with this??

I have to say I came by EMS honestly.  My father was a paramedic for 25 years so I grew up around Criag 4 channel scanners and Ford E350 high top vans.  I also remember hanging out at the base when I was a kid and hearing the dispatch of calls, and for a young kid I remember everything seemed like life or death.  Maybe that was the case or maybe I was just a doe eyed kid who thought my dad was just awesome (a fact I still believe to this day!).  After several years in the business I wonder was that really the case or has society changed that much.  Today it seems that very few calls we are dispatched to are "life or death" emergencies.  Hell alot of them aren't even considered emergencies.  I really began thinking about this alot over the last few weeks and transporting a few "emergencies".  Case in point, a lady decides it will be a good idea to eat two frozen pizzas.  a couple hours later she calls 911 because "my stomach hurts and I vomited".  Really, you think you need an $800 ambulance ride and a $3000 ER bill because you were stupid and ate 2 pizzas??  Is this really worth tying up an ambulance and fire truck for??   So back to my orginal question,  has society changed that much or did Johnny and Roy have to deal with these issues?

1 comment:

  1. People have no common sense anymore. We live in a society where no one takes responsibility for their own actions and everyone thinks they are entitled to feel good all the time. It didn't used to be this way. I believe the increasingly litigious society we live in makes it next to impossible for us to arrive at a call such as the one you mentioned and tell them "you ate 2 pizzas, you're going to be sick & have a stomach ache". Which is what her family would have said, it's certainly what I tell my children OR Johnny & Roy probably would have said off camera! But we cannot do so without fear of complaint, write up and or law suit to follow. People honestly think it's "their right" to do whatever they want and our job is to "fix it" because that's what we get paid to do.

    As frustrating as it is, I suppose we have to keep in mind the true emergencies. The times when we really DO make a difference in someone's life and let that carry us through the stupidity. Unfortunately, those true emergencies seem to be few and far between anymore (lucky for the patient, not so much for us)

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