Posted on 12/28/2010 7:11:33 PM PST by Free ThinkerNY
The epic blizzard kept city medics so busy that -- for the first time ever -- they were given a time limit for performing CPR on patients, The Post has learned.
EMS workers normally call a doctor for advice after working on a patient for 20 minutes.
The doctor normally allows them to keep trying to revive the person, sometimes letting them continue for more than an hour.
But faced with an enormous backlog of 1,300 calls, the medics were told to quit after 20 minutes and move on to the next case.
CPR can last a long time and sometimes medics can work on patients for as long as an hour.
If the certified first responders, in this case firefighters, are on the scene and they are doing CPR for 20 minutes or more, they can call Telelmetry (FDNY doctors) who review the information at hand and decide if they can terminate that call and stop treatment.
Also yesterday, there were five-hour delays in responding to some 911 medical calls and even three-hour delays in responding to "priority" calls, which range from cardiac arrest to a report of an unconscious person.
The number of calls was so high in the city that units from New Jersey were called in to help.
Patrick Bahnken, head of the paramedics and EMT union, said he was told of one case in which police alerted the FDNY that an unconscious person had died after going 90 minutes without help.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
I have a hard time getting upset over this....sounds like triage.
New York: it’s a great place to die.
Obama Care Begins
I can’t imagine performing CPR for an hour.
Obama Care Begins
Sounds like a “DEATH PANEL” to me
Anyone who is getting upset over this needs to volunteer their services.
Some of my friends wondered why I got so upset when O said we could absorb another 9-11. They don’t understand that in an emergency, all bets are off. Fire-Rescue can only do what they can do. If this occurred with a heavy snow, can you imagine what would happen with another attack of sorts? Just a thought.
I bet if the didn't have such nonsense as an "EMT union," they could hire, oh gee I don't know more EMTs?
Statistically, the only hearts that really re-start are cold water drownings, children, and witnessed MI’s with EARLY CPR. In my experience, in almost every other case, CPR only prolongs death.
Couldn’t loved ones take over? I mean, once the 20 minutes had passed, someone could be trained to do the basics, couldn’t they?
Besides, how many people revive after an hour? What are the possibilities of making it after that long?
Yep, and the online shills are tripping over themselves to applaud it, selling out their own country literally into death for a paycheck and a hope that their loyalty will mean they get eaten last.
Their traitorous, cowardly, stupidity is revolting.
Exactly. If after 20 minutes the person isn’t viable enough to transport, then move on to someone who could survive.
In real life, in only 5-10% of cases does CPR actually save the patient's life. This drops to under 2% if it's a case of EMTs doing CPR on people whose hearts were stopped for some unknown time before EMTs arrived. EMTs busy doing CPR on people unlikely to survive are unavailable to save people who WOULD survive if treated.
Last year’s February snowstorm in Pittsburgh resulted in deaths of patients who could not be reached by EMS. Our snowfall was significantly less & the roads simply were not maintained so it was inexcusable IMHO. I’m not sure about the NYC situation - same thing maybe?
In any event, 20 minutes of CPR is reasonable. If the patient dosent respond after that, they’re not gonna.
I am grateful to be one of those statistics. De-fibbed twice by EMTs in the ambulance after an MI. That was nearly 19 years ago, and I’ve been living a normal life ever since.
I know.
My point was that CPR is physically exerting if performed properly.
An hour is a damn long time.
BINGO! We get patients in the ER regularly who were down an unknown length of time, but due the fear of law suits, EMS codes 'em an heads to the ER. The docs do just enough to document death to prevent suits. Total waste of resources, especially in a crisis situation.
You have to do it when your manpower is dwarfed by the emergency.
Nothing political or evil about it. The idea is to save the most people possible.
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