What patient transport device would you use for the following situation? 22-year-old female c/o extreme pain to left shin, ankle, and foot following a fall. Pt is unable to bear weight on foot. Patient is located on a steep, wet, grassy hill, and is 200 feet from a concrete walkway. After reaching the walkway there is a large staircase down to the ground level. Stair chair is useless because of the lawn and the patients need to have their left leg extended. No other trauma is suspected.
In my opinion, this is a great time to deploy the Reeves. It works perfectly in this situation, allowing the EMT’s to safely transport the women off the grass and down the stairs safely and quickly. Now, I know that I have already lost you RI trained EMT’s who have no idea what I am talking about. I consider this to be a gross miscarriage of the EMT-B scope of practice. So, let this article serve as notice, to all of the uninitiated, of the great importance of the Reeves brand flexible stretcher. It is so important to us New Jerseyans that it is a mandatory piece of equipment.
Continue reading ‘Where is the Reeves?’
When I went through EMT – B training, the idea of using a tourniquet was frowned upon. In fact, the answer they usually gave was something along the lines of “only as a last resort to save someone’s life…and even then be careful.” We learned that using a tourniquet was a dangerous last-ditch procedure that often did more harm then good. It made sense to me at the time, “if an EMT cut off the blood supply to a limb, the limb would quickly die.” It would be a bad day if I killed a patient’s arm just because I didn’t give my pressure dressing another few minutes to form a clot.
What we didn’t know at the time was that the instructors didn’t have any hard evidence that tourniquets were bad; they were just repeating things that they had been told. More importantly, patients have died during those “few minutes” that EMT’s have waited for the dressings to clot.
Continue reading ‘The rise of the tourniquet, or… a lot of EMS is based on myth and assumption.’
I think that at Brown we do a lot of things right. However, I have a question to ask: why is our jump kit so heavy? That red bag weighs a ton. I consider myself to be a pretty big guy, but even I have trouble lugging that stupid bag up five flights of Keeney. The gear I carry in the fire service is usually lighter. I honestly had some back soreness after carrying that monstrosity around all night on our spring weekend shift.
Continue reading ‘Why is our jump kit so heavy?’
We are excited to introduce a new featured columnist to brownEMS.org, Tim Satty. I have had the good fortune of knowing and working with Tim for nearly three years now, and can say that his experience in EMS and Fire is a huge asset to brown EMS. In addition to being an excellent provider, he is very passionate about the brown EMS corps. What follows is his first column on the topic of SPINEBOARDING.
In my mind one of the most idiotic things we do in EMS is backboard every trauma patient that presents to us with any sort of head or neck complaint. You cannot find me a single person that is comfortable on one of those babies. If you didn’t have back pain before being boarded, you do after.
Tim’s article in full after the jump:
Continue reading ‘Introducing:’
