Posted on 09/29/2025 12:04:57 PM PDT by Red Badger
This is absolutely insane!
Bureaucracy run amok, and that’s putting it kindly.
Folks, common sense is GONE in America, and this proves it once again.
Two first responders from Powell County in Kentucky saved a man’s life after he was bit by a poisonous mamba snake and was advancing towards cardiac arrest.
They administered anti-venom that they luckily had brought with them and saved the man who almost certainly would have died without it.
The problem?
Well, there is no problem if you ask me, but if you ask the red-tape bureaucrats the problem is they didn’t have the necessary “wilderness” certification necessary to administer anti-venom.
Unreal.
This guy explains it well here:
The KY Board of Emergency Medical Services should be thanking Eddie Barnes for saving a life. Instead they are trying to take his career away, because he acted.
Read and Listen ⬇️https://t.co/y58m20YlMV pic.twitter.com/WgFMtMtaro— Liam Gallagher (@LiamGallagherKY) September 29, 2025
Yahoo News / People adds these details:
Two first responders in Kentucky could potentially lose their licences after saving a man’s life.
Powell County paramedic Eddie Barnes and one of his team members were called to the Kentucky Reptile Zoo in May after the zoo’s co-director, James Harrison, was bitten by a poisonous mamba snake, local news outlet LEX 18 reported.
Barnes told the outlet that he and his teammate went with Harrison to the airport to wait for a medical helicopter. While they were waiting, Harrison told them he needed antivenom as soon as possible — and that he had brought his own from the zoo.
“He said the first part of the stage is paralysis, second part is respiratory arrest, third part is cardiac arrest. He said, ‘I’m gonna die,’ ” Barnes recalled while speaking to the outlet.
Barnes said he attempted to call his supervisor, who didn’t answer, and so he then reached out to Clark Regional Medical Center and spoke to an ER doctor who “gave us permission” to administer the antivenom.
Now, Barnes and his teammate may lose their EMS licenses due to a technicality: Only first responders classified as “wilderness paramedics” are authorized to administer antivenom, per the Kentucky Board of Emergency Medical Services (KBEMS), according to LEX 18. The policy was put in place two years ago, per the outlet.
Neither Barnes nor his partner had wilderness paramedic certification at the time of the incident, and they now have a hearing scheduled for Sept. 30 to find out if they will get to keep their licenses.
Absolutely ridiculous!
Not a single moment more should be spent on this.
Give them an award for having the foresight to bring the anti-venom and save this man’s life!
VIDEO AT LINK........................
Understood, but you are not supposed to administer meds not prescribed to the patient. There’s no way the anti venom had that guy’s name on it. They got a doc’s okay, so they should be okay.
There’s tons of things that should be done differently, but we are under medical direction. For example, I would treat heat stroke far more aggressively than we are authorized to do. The problem with aggressive treatment is I can send the patient into shock and kill them. If they die from heat stroke, fine. If they die from my treatment, the department is liable, and they’ll say I was outside protocol. At a minimum, I’ll be sued and lose everything at a maximum, I’m going to prison.
You’ll say I’m a heartless bastard, but I doubt you would take an action that would render your family homeless and destitute while you do 10-20 in prison.
It’s really the lawyers driving this. We operate in a framework.
Any decent man would walk in and resign to find better work. And bad mouth them for years.
THE BITE VICTIM HAD THE ANTI-VENOM
MEDIC ONLY ADMINISTERED IT
SHE IS THE AUNT OF GEORGE CLOONEY
AT THE ZOO
If people are allowed to save lives without doing the proper paperwork somebody might get hurt! /s
As always, I advise people to conduct their affairs strictly within the limits of the law.
What I might do far from civilization is my own business.
As always, I advise people to conduct their affairs strictly within the limits of the law.
What I might do far from civilization is my own business.
Yep. I tell people were I to drop from the heat, drop me in the coldest stream. If I die, I die. Lying in the hospital as my fried organs slowly die isn’t a good option.
Fifty or so years ago, I was trained as an Army Medical Corpsman.
Immediately after the course on how to perform
a battlefield emergency tracheotomy,
we were all taken aside and told NEVER to do that
in our civilian lives, lest we be sued into oblivion.
If it’s a loved one and they’re being asphyxiated in front of your eyes, you just gonna’ stand there and think..my trainer told me “never to do this in my civilian life....”?
The laws are usually 2 steps behind real situations. Just be very careful when bending them. Make sure there is no other option. Then one does what ones gotta’ do to try and save a life.
If someone is drowning in a lake , but the lake is off limits, you gonna’ try and rescue that person...or say...”well the lake is off limits ..tough sh*t, they shouldn’t have been in the lake”....?
I think some lame a** fire official in l.a. said she wouldn’t try and save an incapacitated person,who was too heavy for her to rescue, from a burning building cause “he shouldn’t have been there”
Tough choices ..
Yep. Also, you were treating fit, young men. We are treating diseased, aged, feeble, obese, out of shape people. The aggressive measures you could employ would kill most of our patients.
“Rules” are quite a bit different in combat situations.
"...While they were waiting, Harrison told them he needed antivenom as soon as possible — and that he had brought his own from the zoo.
So? Which is it?
"...While they were waiting, Harrison told them he needed antivenom as soon as possible — and that he had brought his own from the zoo.
So? Which is it?
Can you imagine DeSoto and Gage of Squad 51 standing over a snake bite victim saying, "No way man. I ain't touching this dude until Dr. Brackett gets his lazy ass down here and does his examination!"
Lawyers and underwriters.
Here is another link to an article on this. You will just love the attitude of this guy, Jeff Thurman, a member of the board’s medical oversight committee, To wit:
Thurman said while he’s happy the man bitten survived, there’s a different conversation to be had here.
“From my perspective, the focus shouldn’t necessarily be on the outcome, its on why the scope of practice exists, why it protects the public, and why we don’t want practitioners at any level, whether it be EMT, paramedic, nurse, physician, doing things that they haven’t been properly vetted to do,” he said.
Thurman said while he’s not a legal professional, he does not see why an EMS worker would be held accountable for someone dying while practicing their scope of care, unless negligence was a factor.” He does add that he is not speaking for the board.”
Now isn’t that great the upshot is it would have o.k. to let the snake bite victim die because the EMS workers would not have gotten in trouble then. Holy crap on a cracker!
https://www.wkyt.com/2025/09/28/expert-weighs-ky-ems-team-under-fire-administrating-anti-venom/
I saw that.
“... it would have o.k. to let the snake bite victim die because the EMS workers would not have gotten in trouble then. Holy crap on a cracker!”
They would have been prosecuted for negligent homicide.................
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