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EMS and other meds, help me with question


gwalchmai
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Do you have a full time paid service or volunteer service? Are there reported injuries? Could the EMS units be tied up elsewhere and you have to wait for mutual aid? Do you live in town or out in the county? How far to wherever the rig is stationed?

Too many variables to generalize an answer like that. I'm not trying to be a dick, just a former EMT. Hope you never need to find out.

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31 minutes ago, Walt Longmire said:

5-15 minutes around here.

This sounds about right for here as well.

I have found the speed seems to vary depending on your tone more than the situation though.  If you calmly say you have accidentally shot yourself and you are bleeding out it may take longer than if you are hysterical about a broken nail.

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47 minutes ago, Paul53 said:

Do you have a full time paid service or volunteer service? Are there reported injuries? Could the EMS units be tied up elsewhere and you have to wait for mutual aid? Do you live in town or out in the county? How far to wherever the rig is stationed?

Too many variables to generalize an answer like that. I'm not trying to be a dick, just a former EMT. Hope you never need to find out.

Full time paid service, reported injuries, edge of (small) town, five miles from EMS HQ to accident.

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46 minutes ago, gwalchmai said:

Full time paid service, reported injuries, edge of (small) town, five miles from EMS HQ to accident.

My best guess is 10 minutes. Excruciating long if you need an ambulance!

 

Emergency vehicles are subject to all routine traffic laws/signs/lights. That's my honest guess. Hope this helps. Sorry if it sounds like I'm being a jerk. It's not intentional.

 

Nights they need time to get dressed if they were asleep. Otherwise from when they are paged out should be just a few minutes. 10 or so. Who does the dispatching? Local or county wide centralized.

Also, in Kennebunkport Maine they have to clarify Main ST, from Maine ST, from North Main ST. The County dispatches from several towns away. They want to help you, honestly, but which direction should we go?

 

Just for laughs, consider in the states I've run, there's no law giving emergency vehicles the right of way. The law says everybody else must yeild the right of way. Subtle differance but crunched ambulance is automatically at fault.

Edited by Paul53
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2 hours ago, gwalchmai said:

Full time paid service, reported injuries, edge of (small) town, five miles from EMS HQ to accident.

Even at this, you never know where a unit will be responding.

The counties I worked in started collecting "fines" at the 15 minute mark, a fire company or other first responders can stop the clock without an EMS unit being on scene.. It doesn't help the person waiting, but time limits and averages are a very general and fickle things. Contracts are funny things.

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My county (and two neighboring ones) have a 7 minute response time average required by the county commission.

The important word here is AVERAGE. That call right next to the station makes up for that 10 minute response time to the other side of the county, when the closest units are already out on another call.

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Our town is split in half by railroads, so going the length of town is not a problem but to go East and West on any first responder call was potentially troublesome, 'cause at times there was a train going through town.

I heard police and fire often enough, report they were blocked from the call due to trains.  Then another dispatch had to be made from usually farther away. but on the "right side of the tracks" to tend to the emergency.

Call times were getting to be such a problem that the county and city decided to take a major East West road and raise it up over the train tracks.  That took a year of construction work.

All this to meet a reasonable time for First Response to emergencies.

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13 hours ago, gwalchmai said:

What is an average response time for EMS to arrive on the scene of a traffic accident in a small semi-rural town? I know this requires a lot of conjecture, but I'm just looking for a ballpark figure sanity check.

Thanks!

Depends on how many can respond and if they are tied up with other calls.

If they aren't busy...probably pretty fast.  10 minutes?  5 minutes?

Lots of variables to this.  Is the EMS/LEO stationed or part of the city?

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13 hours ago, gwalchmai said:

What is an average response time for EMS to arrive on the scene of a traffic accident in a small semi-rural town? I know this requires a lot of conjecture, but I'm just looking for a ballpark figure sanity check.

Thanks!

Why do you ask? Are you planning something interesting?

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9 hours ago, Paul53 said:

Why do you ask? Are you planning something interesting?

Sounds like planning for a "Hold my beer" event, huh?

Nah, seriously, a bicyclist was hit by a motorist in my hometown and the 911 call was delayed for nearly an hour, and I was trying to get a feel for how soon he could have been attended if the driver had called 911 when the accident occurred. Tragic situation with no winners, I'm afraid. :(

 

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8 hours ago, gwalchmai said:

Sounds like planning for a "Hold my beer" event, huh?

 

My family has hit the road for the next three days and left me at home.

It's more like hold my Scotch!  My cigar.   My belt.  

I'm turning this place into my own personal party palace.

(translation:  I'll be eating hot dogs and cleaning the house).

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9 hours ago, gwalchmai said:

Sounds like planning for a "Hold my beer" event, huh?

Nah, seriously, a bicyclist was hit by a motorist in my hometown and the 911 call was delayed for nearly an hour, and I was trying to get a feel for how soon he could have been attended if the driver had called 911 when the accident occurred. Tragic situation with no winners, I'm afraid. :(

 

You just eliminated any response time from the equation. Nothing will start, or happen until a call is made.

The question is the wrong one and unfortunately irrelevant. I hope the bicyclist is OK.

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14 hours ago, LostinTexas said:

You just eliminated any response time from the equation. Nothing will start, or happen until a call is made.

The question is the wrong one and unfortunately irrelevant. I hope the bicyclist is OK.

I'm trying to get a feel for the cyclist's chances if 911 had been called immediately. He didn't survive.

 

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On ‎2‎/‎13‎/‎2020 at 5:02 PM, janice6 said:

Our town is split in half by railroads, so going the length of town is not a problem but to go East and West on any first responder call was potentially troublesome, 'cause at times there was a train going through town.

I heard police and fire often enough, report they were blocked from the call due to trains.  Then another dispatch had to be made from usually farther away. but on the "right side of the tracks" to tend to the emergency.

Call times were getting to be such a problem that the county and city decided to take a major East West road and raise it up over the train tracks.  That took a year of construction work.

All this to meet a reasonable time for First Response to emergencies.

I had a few "Delayed response due to train" early in my career.

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2 minutes ago, gwalchmai said:

I'm trying to get a feel for the cyclist's chances if 911 had been called immediately. He didn't survive.

 

"The Golden Hour," while not a literal hour, stresses the importance of early recognition and treatment of critical trauma patients. Anything outside the norm from fast transport (which requires early activation of 911) to definitive care, lessens the trauma victim's chance of a good outcome. Delayed care leads to possible exsanguination and shock, impaired gas exchange, lactic acidosis, and less than optimal patient outcomes, up to and including death. Some things, you're not going to fix, unless you're lucky enough to get stabbed in the aorta in the ER lobby at a level 1 trauma center. Maybe that was the case with the biker. But I would wager that he didn't get all the chances he coulda gotten, with timely treatment to the trauma center.

The book I'm studying for an upcoming trauma class has over A THOUSAND references in the back. The American College of Surgeons have been studying and teaching Advanced Trauma Life Support since the 1970s- they are on their game.  Pretty excited about this class.

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