Posted on 04/13/2012 5:40:51 PM PDT by DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis
Firefighters are using forklift trucks to rescue obese people after crews injured their backs trying to move them.
Five firemen from a single Yorkshire town have injured their backs and muscles while trying to manoeuvre overweight people in the past two years, a report found. It resulted in a total of 13 working days being lost as the injured officers recovered.
Now crews in Rotherham, one of Britain's fattest towns, are using forklift trucks and hydrolic platforms to rescue fat people from fires and falls and to help the ambulance service move bariatric patients to hospital.
A report commissioned by Rotherham council found overweight people at putting their lives at risk and diverting fire crews from attending more pressing 999 calls.
It noted: "South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue crews have had a number of firefighters injured while carrying out such rescues, usually muscular skeletal injuries , including back and muscle strains.
"As with any emergency situation, the risk for injury to staff is minimised but the rescue of people in these circumstances tends to be problematic due to the limited space in traditional houses, especially hallways and stairs."
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Wonder if she uses equal in her tea?
When the fire department has to call the racetrack to send over the horse ambulance, you’re too bleeping fat.
If you are over 300 lbs in our town and need emergency medical assistance, you will have to wait for the bariatric ambulance to be dispatched from county, unless you can walk to and from the ambulance. The bariatric ambulance actually winches in the stretcher. Still doesn’t get someone down the stairs though. We’ve slid them down on a Reeves stretcher. There’s a nice stair chair with treads but that’s no good for an unconscious patient or broken hip. Haven’t had to try to get them up out of the basement yet.
So it would be wise to tell dispatch that you will need that bariatric ambulance - otherwise you’ll lose another five to ten minutes waiting for the first responders to get there and make that determination. And wait a minimum of 15-20 minutes for the bariatric rig, if it is available.
Let’s face it - our all-volunteer EMTs are middle-aged to elderly, with some bad backs, and a handful of mostly short skinny pre-pre-med teenagers - little 98 lb Indian girls some of them. The police - mostly strongly built youngish men - will come for a lift assist.
Two EMT principles:
1) Don’t become a second patient.
2) Remember the ABC’s - Ambulate Before Carry
Thank goodness I live in an area where there is social pressure against obesity - not a whole lot of really overweight people here.
When I was a kid, I NEVER saw people that big. Now I see them all the time. What happened?
you know, every time i see an obese person, he’s eating.
Supersize those nachos please!
EMT’s dodging bullets and traffic, and now risking blown backs caring for the well-fed.
A firefighter friend of mine severely injured his back while attempting to help an obese woman stuck in a bathtub.
He has had several surgeries, but can only walk slowly with the use of two canes. He’s in his 30s and has two young sons he can no longer even play catch with.
I was putting a rather hefty patient into an ambulance in Jan 2011 when the litter got out of control and dropped. I ended up with a closed tib/fib fracture. Pins screws and plates and four months of PT.
15 months later I still have some swelling and pain but I walk normal. The whole thing soured me on my volunteer EMT gig although I’m still active in volunteer Fire and S&R and do medical communications part time.
By the way, fatboy is not fat, he is a slim 140 pounder.
welfare...
MacDonalds started to take food stamps? ................................................... FRegards
Now it's happening in real life.
My back aches all of the time and hurts fairly often after 24 yrs fire and paramedic. We run about 80% medical calls. I have removed the big bedroom window in order to get a patient out of the house because they no longer fit through a door.
Now we have cots with a hydraulic lift sourced from Mercruiser boat motors. Wish we had had those when I started.
my son is a firefighter. Moving morbidly obese people is one of the most difficult jobs they have. Of course, he never complains, and just says it’s just part of the job. But it happens more and more frequently. He says, “if they’d just stop eating” it would be easier on all of them. Some of the firefighters on his shift are not so kind.
my son is a firefighter. Moving morbidly obese people is one of the most difficult jobs they have. Of course, he never complains, and just says it’s just part of the job. But it happens more and more frequently. He says, “if they’d just stop eating” it would be easier on all of them. Some of the firefighters on his shift are not so kind.
my son is a firefighter. Moving morbidly obese people is one of the most difficult jobs they have. Of course, he never complains, and just says it’s just part of the job. But it happens more and more frequently. He says, “if they’d just stop eating” it would be easier on all of them. Some of the firefighters on his shift are not so kind.
the patient got suddenly worse and had to be transferred to a larger hospital...
the ambulance crew had 5 burly firemen come and get the patient into the ambulance...5....and here the lone nurse was doing all the work by herself.
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