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saturday was prom, and i was in the process of getting ready...in fact i had shaving cream on my face when we got tripped for a shooting at a house that is less than a mile from me. so, i called the station to see where we were staging, and i met the rig there. all we knew was that an elderly gentlman had been shot bilaterally in the legs...unknown if it was femur or tib/fib. so we waited, and in the meantime the medic had the bird land at the airport (about 10min away). eventually the cops got there and we were to proceed in. we go there and were met at the door by a cop with his gun drawn. we were told the guy ran off into the woods and he was still around. we were to get in get out and get going. we walked inside the house and there was another cop with a semi-auto 12ga ready to roll. everytime we went in or out, we had an armed escort. the pt had bilateral gsw's to the tib/fibs of both legs from a 9mm. he was a dr, so he or his wife wrapped his legs and he was alread treated for shock...little blood loss. we packaged him and literally ran to the ambo. we were on scene prolly 10 min, and in that time we accumulated 2 game commissioners, a k9 unit and like 3 other cops, with swat enroute. the pt was in the air, out of our care in less than 20 min. all in all, it was the MOST INTENSE call i have ever run. especially with it being so close to home. i ended up going to prom, and the guy turned himself in at 2am the next morning.

weird part was was that it was the smae guy who gave me a ride to the hall after i ditched my car enroute to a call last winter. i guess paying it forward really works.

did i miss something? what is so terrible about "kids" being involved in ems? and what did this call have anything to do with that quote?

sorry about that...its been a hellacious week. i do remember that now. in fact i believe we even had  a post about it on the EMS group boards. it deffintly was dangerous, but thats just one of those things that comes with the job, whther you're a  "kid" or a 30yr veteran.

Ah, sounds like an interesting call. However, Im doubting that it was your first and from the way you described it, it sounded like you did a fantastic job given the circumstances.

I for example probably would have held my crew back until I knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was secure. I am a huge fan of the saying "Better him than me" :D

I remember way  back in the day, my very first medical call, I had just turned 18 and was allowed to actually do things on scene. Gun shot wound to the head. Guy was pretty much DRT.. Kind of. All I can say is that when he left my care, he was alive. :D

Congrats, and job well done.

I dunno man. Be carefull with those unsafe scenes. No sense in endangering yourself for someone else. Always always remember : You can help anybody if you're dead.

dept24emt says ...

thanks kzov. it actually was my first gun shot, but not my first trauma or scene unsafe by any means.

lhinkle...i resent that. in fact, that really pisses me off. we go through the same fu*king course you do. why the hell shouldnt we be? its not liek we get our emt then they throw us out into the field. we still have to operate with a senior emt by our side.

kzov- i know what you mean. i think you might have taken what i said wrong/i didnt write what i meant well. what i meant was that it wasnt the first unsafe scene (we had to wait for the po-po) that ive gone on. i value my life wayyyy too much to go running in on a scene thats unsafe. we have some real nut jobs around here that wouldnt think twice about taking a swing at you.

this is how my dept works and i think it works the best way in my thinkin. My dept will let any personell on the call under age of 18 as long as their a seinor on the call with them and also my dept 1 dont let anyone under the age of 18 go to any susciude 2 OD 3 an unsafe call that has PD or state police on scene. I think that most dept should go by this. I mean anyone who wants to get their EMT great good for them but i think anyone under the age of 18 should not run those type of emergency.

Same here

trust me I was a 18 y/o EMT  I was "bulletproof" and wanted ALL trauma but after about two years and being around some really good VET's I settled in. I had many calls were I had to go back to the stastion and really deal with the things I saw and had to do but with age all things are revealed. Just sit back do your thing and soak up EVERYTHAING you can from them " OLD GUYS ". They are your best tools and training. JUST REMEMBER THAT!!!!!!  and you will be here in 24 years like me.   I was " THE KID " like you and we do become the " OLD GUYS " all too fast.

The police are not going to want to deal with the liablitly to move the pt without proper help. 

The guy was shot bi-latterally, which basicly means he got both sides, and dept24EMT said that he got both tibs/fibs, which means that he got both ankle areas... So its not like the man could walk out.

As for the age thing, I think its a darn good thing that there are still young people who are interested in this proffession to the point that Dept24EMT is. Without younger guys, there wouldnt be anybody to help out all you old farts :D

While I absolutely agree that safety is first, I'm not sure we have enough information to determine whether the scene was secure or not.  I know this may stir some heads, but hear me out.  Do we know what he was shot with?  We know that he was spotted "running off in the woods"...how far away are these "woods"?  If he used a shotgun to do the shooting and has now "run off in the woods", the odds of him being able to get back into the house (within the effective range of the shotgun) with LE standing around with guns drawn are pretty slim and I would call the scene relatively secure.  Granted, it's not a perfect situation because he is not in custody - but the benefits would outweigh the risks to treat the patient.  Now, if he used a high powered deer rifle to do the shooting with, then the scenario changes drastically because of the effective range of the weapon.

Secondly, I see both side of the age argument on the EMT.  I passed my National Registry test 2 weeks after turning 18 (back when it was EMT-A) and don't regret it a bit.  I stood back, watched, and learned alot of the old dogs and am grateful for the wealth of knowledge they gave me.  Like TXfiremanlee said, I also was a "trauma hound" at that age and it took time and maturing to understand that someone with difficulty breathing could be just as detrimental, if not more, than a multivehicle MVA.  However, becoming an EMT at an early age is what steered me in my decision to join the Navy as a corpsman and I have been an emergency medicine junkie ever since.  I'm going on 20 years now in EMS (mixed civilian and military) and I wouldn't change a thing that I have done.

I am glad there are young people willing to get into the EMS side of this business because from my experience, most focus on the FF aspect and could care less about the EMS side.  But, I also understand that emotionally (mentally), not everyone is mature enough to handle the drain EMS can put on you.  Hell, I know 25 year olds who don't have the mental fortitude to handle the serious EMS calls.  I don't think is has as much to do with age as it does with maturity level.

Just my .02 cents

Kowboy 

Now now people.  Let's watch the attitudes here.  We've already hashed this out.  Do we really need to go there again?  I say good job to the young bucks who have the enthusiam to seek out this line of work.  Just because a state has different laws and protocols doesn't mean they don't know what they are doing.  If Pa chooses to let persons under 18 run calls, then fine.  We don't know Micah personally and we all don't know how mature he is or isn't.  If he can handle a shooting, or bplavlovich (sorry if I spelled it wrong) can handle smashed brains tractor boy, then I say they are mature enough to handle it.  Keep it up guys!  Just don't become another Howard.  I think that's what the others are affraid of.

Yes thanks for the support Jad. And you don't have to worry about me either. I'm not going to become a howard. We already have one of those in our station. His name is Pat. He thinks he knows everything there is to know about fire and EMS. (FYI he doesn't).

And as for the support thing, I agree with Micah. I understand all of your points of view, but try to give us the same respect as you give your colleagues, even if you don't agree with us in the service. We look up to you, and it stings to have a superior that we look up to telling us that we shouldn't be in the EMS service.

Another thing that is agitating me. In our department, apparently it's been around for years but I just found out about it. But at any rate, when you become an EMT, if you're under the age of 18 you must run the call with another EMT in the back of the truck at all times. But I just found out last night that I am only able to run a call if our asst. chief, EMS director or their son are on the call with me until I get signed off. Which the signing off part will never happen because niether of them are around enough for me to run calls with them. And we also apparently have a new policy that we are not able to transport BLS unless there are at least one FR and one EMT aboard the ambulance which I think is retarted. And our asst. chief's son blatenly told me last night that I pretty much suck as an EMT and that he has no clue how I would handle a shit hitting the ceiling call, so he doesn't think that I should get signed off anytime soon. So I'm a little fired up and ready to stop running EMS calls altogether.

Do you at least see my point though jad? I mean, the other night we had a drunk driver roll his car and was trapped in the car, and I'm going to remind you that this was the first MVA that I've had with entrapment. It was myself and another EMT from our department that responded. When we got to the scene, the guy was concious, but would only respond to me. So I took c-spine and maintained a constant communication with the pt while they were extricating him from the car. Once we had him out of the car and were on the way over to the ALS ambulance that was to take him to the LZ, I maintained at the head of the pt, and continued to talk to him while they were preparing him to be transported to the LZ. The senior EMT on the truck asked me to get out because there were too many people in the back of the ambulance, so I got out and went over with our ambulance. As soon as I stepped out of their ambulance, the pt went unresponsive. Once the car was cleaned up, all of the firefighters from our mutual aid department were talking to me and praising me for how calm I was and how good of a job I did. But then he went and said that last night. And I understand that a MVA rollover with entrapment isn't a shit hitting the ceiling call, but I still held my calm and was level headed the whole call.

tsmith1 says ...

OK guys, this horse was dead a really long time ago.

The rest of us on this site respect you. The rest of us on this site have a genuine concern for your well-being. You want us to respect you and see that you are mature enough to handle the calls that you may run. Be mature enough to accept advice. Read what is written, not just what you think we mean. As for my posts, there is nothing "between the lines". I can't speak for anyone else.

I have a healthy respect for anyone willing to even fill out an application to a fire or EMS service. Odd things must be in odd places in our minds for us to even think that we can do this job. Then, to actually follow through with it and really do the job puts twisted on anther level. I applaud you for your efforts and what you do. But, I caution you as to how you proceed.

Remember, this is your mental health we're discussing. And mine. And everyone else's.

I understand that the horse was dead a long time ago tsmith1. This past message wasn't a crack at you. It was a crack towards my department and how they are running things and downtalking me. It's getting to be a little ridiculous within my department.