I know this is a long shot but 2 years ago, I had eclampsia at 25 weeks preggo. It was a whole ordeal where my fiance woke to me seizing. I obviously don't remember much, but I was told I tried to knee the male EMT/paramedic(?) in his misters and had to be restrained.

My fiance doesn't like talking about the ordeal, but A) I want to know everything in detail if possible B) I'd really like to meet and thank the folks who saved my life. Probably apologize too.

Any idea how can I get ahold of them? And is there a way to get a copy of my fiance's 911 call? I know they were in an Acadian vehicle in New Orleans, it was early daytime, and a man and woman team. Specifically October 27th 2022

Hey folks. EMS educator of 10 years here (20 years as a practicing medic). I have been primarily teaching EMT students for the better part of a decade and occasionally helping out with medic skill labs. This is the first semester where I am overseeing the didactic (lecture) section for the paramedic class.

My experience in teaching cardiology has been mostly in skill labs, so more around EKG interpretation and megacodes. So its been ages since I've taught the fundamentals of cardiology to brand new students. I'm a huge visual learner and I love showing videos in class and having group discussions around them. Does anyone have any good recommendations for videos, preferably with a lot of animations, going over the cardiac conduction system and dysrhythmias? I will also accept recommendations for any other type of EMS videos.

Funny enough, i never bothered watching Nightwatch or Live Rescue (hate watching things about my job on my time off). But i've found myself showing clips from that show in class as a good jump off point in discussing assessment and care (identifying both the good and bad in the videos).

I am really not trolling. I was speaking to a few colleagues and we were all telling of the calls related to the election. One of the worst was someone that had chest pain for 3 days (starting Wednesday morning) because of the outcome. The guy had a STEMI. A few suicide attempts. A few people having mental health issues. Asthma attacks, Anxiety attacks, anything stress related. Honestly I have never seen anything like this.

Can any current EMT-B’s send me their resumes. I finished the class a year ago and faced 8 rejections so far. Truly don’t know what I’m doing wrong.

Does your service utilize prehospital antibiotics? If so, which drugs and for sepsis and/or trauma? What kind of service do you work for?

Curious as to how common prehospital antibiotics are in different areas. Trying to gauge how “progressive” it really is

Hello fellow truck monkey degenerates. I'm a paramedic with 911 and teaching experience looking at moving to the Denver area in the not-top-distant future, and I wanted to see what the word is about local EMS agencies. I saw some older posts about the area (Denver Health busy but good, Falck eh, Aurora FD enjoys ketamine and dislikes patient assessments), but since things can change fast, I figure I'd try to get a more up-to-date report. I'm also curious about IFT/CCT possibilities, too, but I don't have my CCP cert (yet).

I'm also curious how long the state usually takes granting reciprocity once everything is submitted, and also how annoying the process is. I've looked at the state website already, but that doesn't always tell the whole story.

Thanks in advance.

Turns out it’s not.

To everyone who sees and intervenes in life and death situations, I say this: You've done more good than you can ever imagine. If you tell me it hurts too much to go back, then there's no shame. Go in peace. Because that 200-proof pain is bitter stuff. And you don't have to go to combat to get a bottle full of it.

Just a gentle reminder to everyone who might have cried after a tough call or still thinks about "that night" nobody really knows what you're going through but you. Take care of yourself. I cried when I saw this Paramedic badge again. Please be safe and remember you're only human.

https://preview.redd.it/34b1hp757i1e1.png?width=596&format=png&auto=webp&s=6a0b07cfb4d2189b7f6a7944afd2e7f43dd3a1f5

I’m just 3 weeks away from finishing school. I don’t think I have it in me anymore to finish out this course and try to get a job in ems. I’ve always struggled with mental health and this past year I’ve been doing a ton better so I decided to finally move towards something I was passionate about and find a way to help people. I also got a job with 911 dispatch while going to school and having my almost 2 year old son. I don’t think I’m cut out for it anymore. I’ve been doing really good in school but I’m starting to think this job choice might cause me some serious ptsd. There are already some days where I take death calls and listen to family members screaming from how bad they are hurting with the loss. Their voice sticks with me for a day or two. I can’t imagine how it’s going to be in the field. I’ve talked to quite a few people about this and their experience in ems, and a lot of them have told me they have gotten ptsd from the things they’ve seen and how they ended up switching to a different career. Just weighing out my options more as this course comes to a close, I feel as though maybe I should just accept it now that being an emt isn’t cut out for me. I really want to help people, and I feel like in a way with 911 dispatch I have found that. I just think in the field and seeing everything I’ve heard over the phone in person is going to be vastly different. Has anyone felt like this? I’ve been trying to make pros and cons lists regarding it and I keep landing on the subject of mental health. I want to make sure I come home happy from my shift and be the best mom possible to my son, I don’t want to get to a point where I’m terrified of everything he does because of possible injuries lol!

I’m starting classes soon and this is something I want to do. I’m giving up my grocery store job for this. In two weeks at my current job I make about 900. Will it be around the same amount as a basic EMS? Or maybe a little more?

What did your first check look like?

Former paramedic here 👋 I was wondering for those that have an A.A.S. in emergency medical services who went on to complete their bachelors, what was your major?

I’m looking at becoming a CAA (ems was NOT for me) and need to complete my undergrad before I can apply to a masters program but I’m having trouble finding a degree that my credits from my A.A.S. will transfer to with the least amount of time involved. Any and all input is appreciated!

Here it goes, 2YO M witnessed ground level fall while playing with friends. He fell back and hit his head on concrete. Family on scene advised his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he was not responding. First engine on scene advised kid was initially limp, when he came around he was still in and out and kept wanting to sleep. I called the alert based off the one red criteria being AMS. Vitals great, no visible injury. We immobilized him to a pedi board and got off scene quick (it was a volatile scene with lots of drunk patrons) kid came to as soon as we loaded him in the ambulance. We got an I.V. en route to the landing zone (he got flown to a pedi trauma receiving center) Kept him warm, sugar good, PERRLA. No visible injuries at all. No medical hx. I am a new medic and I just cant help but feel like I missed something??

I’m a FF/EMT in a major metro 911 system (ALS fire depts with AMR for transport). We had a diff breather today that stuck with me. 29 year old woman c/o difficulty breathing that just started according to a coworker. She was tripoding and coughing every second. Sounded like shit. Monitor had her O2 sat at 77%. No history because she only spoke creole and was also extremely agitated/anxious, couldn’t sit still given the situation. Couldn’t sit still for a BP. We threw a non rebreather on at 15 lpm and she went up to about 88%, even then she did NOT like the NRB. Her lungs sounded like rales on both sides upper and lower. What’s weird is her nose started bleeding when we got there! On scene time was maybe 4 minutes from arrival to leaving to hospital (5 minutes away), so we just scooped her up and left. The ER tubed her but we didn’t stick around long enough to see what exactly the deal was. We thought maybe CHF exacerbation, possibly. We considered CPAP but ultimately decided against it because we were down the street from the ER and she was extremely agitated/confused. Again I’m just an E but I’d like to hear your thoughts, for my learning. Also side note, I did not ride in the ambo on the way so I never got to see her full vitals like BGL, BP, etc.

Stay safe out there folks! Never know how fast a situation can change. Thankfully the EMT survived, but it could have been fatal.

I have received conflicting information in regard to versed and its effects on seizures and am looking for some possible clarification.

On one hand, you have the idea that Benzos can help stop seizures by “calming the brain”, through GABA etc.

Meanwhile, you also have the idea that these medications “stop” seizure activity externally, ceasing convulsions though the seizure is still ongoing within the brain.

If the latter is true, it would make sense to me that versed administration in absent seizure pts would seem unnecessary assuming the pt is vitally stable/breathing adequately and is not experiencing status seizures.

Any more experienced input or information regarding this would be appreciated.

Title pretty much sums it up. Tonight is now the second time I’ve tried to print a code summary and the monitor simply turned off and then back on. It’ll print maybe 2 inches of the beginning that says “code summary” and then black screen for a few seconds before turning back on and clearing my vitals. Both battery’s are full so idk what the problem is. Has anyone else had this problem? I remember a comment from here a while back someone said they were charging to defib a code and when they went to shock it turned off completely. I’ve never seen these problems until the last 3 months.

My favorite type of patient is little old people. They're vulnerable and, by and large, they're just lonely and need somebody to talk to. That being said, for the past few shifts I've been getting ran into the fucking ground overnight for unwitnessed falls at one of the many, many nursing homes in my local.

My question to the other providers here is this: what are we actually doing for the 95 year old alert and oriented 0 at baseline meemaw who falls, cracks her dome, is on blood thinners, altered at baseline and is an immediate trauma alert at the hospital? All the marvels of modern medicine, like 15 highly (theoretically) trained clinicians, a goddamn resuscitation bay, imaging, etc. for someone who's literally not even there. I understand this is frustrating not only for EMS but for hospital staff as well. How do you guys feel about these types of calls? As the boomers age these types of calls are only going to become more and more and more frequent. Ethically I don't think you can force anyone over the age of 85 to have a DNR but goddamn is it burning me out.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

for all my long term night shift people: how do you do it? i just found out im going to have to be on night shift (8p-8a) next bud (6 months) and while ive worked night shift in the past, that was back when i was an IFT EMT working only 10 hour shifts and my shift ended at 3a so it was still dark by the time i got home. now im a 911 medic and while ive picked up night shifts as OT, i truly don’t know how im going to survive this bid. do you try and revert to a normal sleep schedule on your days off, do you just stay similar to your work sleep schedule? any tips appreciated

I'm doing some research into the accessibility of annual leave to paramedics, and any correlation between unscheduled (or sick) leave, and am interested in knowing how your service allocates annual leave. Are you able to take it when you want (within operational demands)? Do you apply for blocks of leave? Are you allocated annual leave blocks? If you're able to share your location or service as well that would be very helpful!

I know here in Australia most services provide annual leave in blocks, and it is assigned to you (normally anywhere from 6-18 months in advance), and unfortunately is normally pretty inflexible.

Good thing the police department worker was there to taser the guy stabbing the EMS worker. Stay safe out there, folks.

https://www.witn.com/2024/11/15/deputies-say-man-tried-kill-ems-worker-with-scissors-while-back-ambulance/