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A heroic New York EMT who tried in vain last week to save a 7-year-old school girl choking on her lunch said he was suspended because it is against company policy to make a stop without being called. Qwasi Reid, who works for Assist Ambulance, was transporting a nursing home patient last Wednesday with his partner when he said they were flagged down at a red light by a frantic man who told them that a student was choking. Reid said his partner, who was not reprimanded by the company, told the man they already had a patient and there...

DETROIT - The Detroit fire commissioner has fired an EMT who refused to help a baby when she was just minutes away from the home. Commissioner Edsel Jenkins said Ann Marie Thomas's employment with the Detroit Fire Department has been terminated. "Today, we conducted an appeals hearing, which Ms. Thomas requested. After reviewing all of the facts of this incident, I have determined that the appropriate course of action is to terminate Ms. Thomas' employment with the Detroit Fire Department effective immediately," said Jenkins in a statement released Wednesday.

CERT Training Session 4 This session was a practical test in which the CERT Volunteers were called to the location of a simulated disaster. In contrast to previous sessions, the practical test was held outdoors in the downtown parking lot of a metropolitan convention facility. Groups from a number of different cities participated in the event as well as teams sponsored by the national FEMA organization. The event was organized by professional staff of the participating cities. The organizers had decades-long experience with Fire and Rescue operations. There were approximately 50 CERT volunteers plus 50 role-player “disaster victim” volunteers attending...

CERT Training Session 3 As before, this session was held in a city facility and lasted for most of the day. This session went over “Unit 3” and “Unit 4” of the training materials – “Disaster Medical Operations”. The instructors reviewed information from the previous session on Triage procedures and basic First Aid. “Triage is not treatment. It is sorting”. This point was emphasized by the instructors. In a mass-casualty event the first thing the responders want to do is identify victims who are uninjured, or do not need immediate medical attention, and get them away from the incident site...

CERT Training Session 2 As before, this session was held in a city facility and lasted for most of the day. Almost all of the previous attendees from session 1 returned for session 2. There were a small number of new students as well. The morning portion went over Government responses to terrorist incidents; “Unit 8” of the training documents. This material comes straight from FEMA, and is mainly concerned with Chemical, Radiological, Biological, and Nuclear attacks. The FEMA managers seem to be obsessed with such possibilities. This is rather curious, since even the training materials mention that 80% of...

CERT Training, Session 1 A posting on another blog suggested that “preppers” should learn about the Incident Command System used by FEMA and that this might best be done by taking some of the courses offered by that agency. See your tax dollars at work, so to speak. A CERT course was available and scheduled nearby. I decided to attend. “CERT” stands for “Community Emergency Response Teams”. This program is sponsored on a national level by FEMA and is based on volunteer organizations first created about thirty years ago by the Los Angles Fire Department. CERT makes explicit use of...

77-year-old collapsed across street from DC firehouse (Newser) – Marie Mills' father collapsed Saturday afternoon in a shopping center parking lot across the street from a Washington, DC, firehouse—but firefighters didn't rush to his aid, despite repeated pleas for help, and Medric "Cecil" Mills, 77, died of a heart attack. Marie Mills tells WTTG that bystanders were "screaming and hollering" at a firefighter across the street, and three people even ran over to Engine 26, but they were told rescuers could not respond until 911 was called, the Washington Post reports. Sources say that when 911 was called, an...

The Treasury said Friday it will not count “nominally compensated” volunteer firefighters or emergency medical services personnel as full-time employees when the employer mandate tied to Obamacare takes effect next year. In a blog post, the department said it reviewed the tax code and concluded it would not be reasonable to count first-responder volunteers against the law’s threshold of 50 employees. [Snip] The Treasury made its latest decision after accepting feedback from local fire and EMS departments.

What happens when major portions of the United States loses power? How will people cope? How will people die? From this forum, I heard of this docudrama and set the DVR. I only made it 40 minutes in until I started hiding my head under the couch pillows and at the one hour mark, I fled the room where my husband was watching. He put it on hold for tonight, because he wants to know what happens. I will hear it second hand from him. At first, from the timeline, 2006, I thought this was previously aired six years ago....

<p>The Brooklyn EMT who callously refused to help a dying pregnant woman because she was on her coffee break saw her official misconduct charge dropped today after EMS chief Abdo Nahmod — who initially supported the case against her — flip-flopped, leaving frustrated Brooklyn prosecutors no choice but to dismiss the case.</p>

According to a criminal complaint, a woman stole an ambulance that was on a call in the 4000 Block of MacCorkle Avenue in Charleston, W.Va on Dec 13. According EMS personnel who were responding to a call, Elizabeth Ann Lacy, 47, approached them and asked for a ride home. The EMS told her that they were on a call and couldn't take her home. The paramedics then entered the home of the patient and began treatment. According to witnesses, after the EMS's entered the home Lacy entered the ambulance and drove off with the emergency lights still on.

A man has been arrested for allegedly attacking a paramedic and breaking his leg at the Occupy Wall Street site Wednesday night. Police say paramedics were called to Zuccotti Park for a man who was acting irrationally. When they arrived, the man in question appeared to be in emotional distress and police decided he needed to be taken to the hospital. But he refused to be placed in the ambulance and pushed one of the EMTs into a ladder, fracturing the EMT's leg. The man is being charged with assault. Earlier in the day, Mayor Bloomberg defended the protesters as...

Who are “First Responders?” They are the men and women of our local communities who put their lives on the line for each of us on a daily basis by responding to emergency (911) calls. They are Firemen, Police, EMTs and others who have promised each of us that no matter what the emergency, they will be there for us. And it’s a promise they keep every day of their (and our) lives. Dave Carroll knows a lot about this from first-hand experience. He’s been a volunteer fireman in his home town of Waverly, Nova Scotia while building his musical...

What goes around comes around. You reap what you sow. No good deed goes unrewarded. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That’s pretty much the sum total “Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” version of how people should treat each other. While I certainly don’t rejoice in what is described in the article below, I can’t help but wonder if the cosmic scales are sometimes adjusted in ways that even we mere mortals can understand and should heed...

Four-hundred-, 600- and even 800-pound patients are presenting ambulance crews with some big challenges. As obesity rates rise, paramedics in Nebraska and Iowa are faced with carrying more obese patients. In turn, paramedics find creative ways to move them, and some fire departments are looking to borrow or buy specialized equipment. Lincoln Fire & Rescue, for example, is considering putting a construction crane and a forklift on call for patients who are too big to get out a door or down steps. Firefighters had to use a tarp to haul an 800-pound patient a few years ago. It's another example...

When EMTs arrived at Michael Jackson's home yesterday, the medics wanted to pronounce him dead on the scene -- but Michael's personal doctor refused to let them "call it" -- this according to sources close to the situation. When EMTs arrived there was evidence someone had been performing CPR on Michael for "quite some time." There was evidence of Lidocaine -- an old-school drug that can be used to treat disturbances in the heart's rhythm. Medics took over performing CPR but determined Jackson was lifeless -- and wanted to call the coroner to pick up the body. We're told Jackson...

OKLAHOMA CITY — The paramedic who scuffled with an Oklahoma highway police officer while a patient waited inside the ambulance says the trooper should lose his badge. Maurice White Jr. said Tuesday on the CBS "Early Show" that trooper Daniel Martin was in a state of rage when he stopped his ambulance and totally disregarded the patient's safety. Martin stopped the ambulance May 24 for failing to yield. White says he got out of the ambulance to tell the trooper they were taking a patient to the hospital. The argument quickly escalated into a scuffle and Martin put White in...

Caught on camera: Cop scuffles with EMTs after pulling over ambulance The Oklahoma Highway Patrol has released dash-cam video showing an altercation between a state trooper and the crew of an ambulance that he pulled over. The video shows the paramedics repeatedly tell Trooper Daniel Martin that they have a patient in the ambulance and need to get to a hospital. Martin chased the ambulance down and pulled it over after the driver refused to yield when the trooper's car first encountered the vehicle. Trooper Martin initially passed the ambulance while on his way to another call, but left that...

PRAGUE — The Oklahoma Highway Patrol released a dashboard camera video late Friday that was recorded during an altercation between a patrol trooper and an emergency medical technician. Featured Gallery The patrol said the move is contrary to what the agency normally does but decided to release the video because of the high level of public interest and the fact that the release "would not affect the administrative review” of the patrol’s investigation of the incident, according to a statement released late Friday. "We’ve been well aware of the fact that this incident has drawn enormous attention, but made the...

<p>Two EMT workers in Britain were arrested after they were heard allegedly discussing whether they should bother to resuscitate a disabled man who had collapsed at home and subsequently died.</p> <p>Barry Baker, 59, who lived alone, dialed 911 saying that he thought he was having a heart attack. An ambulance was sent to his house while a controller kept him talking on the line.</p>