I have had more than a few part time jobs in my career in EMS one of which was with Belchertown EMS when I lived in that town for a couple of years.  After I moved out of town, the volunteer fire department that ran less than 300 calls a year absorbed an EMS service that ran over 1,000 calls annually.  One thing to realize is that Belchertown is pretty remote.  If a second ALS ambulance responded from another community, the length of that response could be significant. I remember when the departments combined.  The reaction of many in the community was “Other towns have fire based EMS systems so I am sure that it will work here too.”  The community support for Belchertown EMS was minimal, and their director did not put up much of a fight I would speculate because he was about to transition over into a leadership position within the fire department.  People saw this as a money saving opportunity for the taxpayers.  Consolidate the departments because that was the pattern in most of the Pioneer Valley but what they did not realize is that many of these already established fire based EMS systems were set up by the right people who had an idea of what they were doing.  They recognized the value of experienced providers and stocked their system with not only “home grown” paramedics that their department put through school but people from existing paramedic level services who already had experience. Belchertown, like most EMS services in the country, was different from anything around it.  Due to the isolated nature of the town and the moderately low call volume (1,000 – 1,500) experience was vital.  Transport times to local hospitals were considerably longer than other systems experienced and it was a frequent occurrence that a tech’ing paramedic might find themselves diving deeper into their protocols than they were used to.  The department itself was set up with a lot of input from a small core of full-time employees that kept the place going which made it easier for Chief Bock from Belchertown Fire to just take over.  Turnouts from the call department were low for most fires, especially...

DC Fire and EMS Chief Kenneth Ellerbe has finally seen the light and stepped down from his current position.  Interestingly enough, he had what could be the quote of the year, “I think we’ve left the department in a much better position than when I got here.”  I am not sure what changes Chief Ellerbe made to the “fire side” of the operation, but judging from what has been going on with the EMS side, the most positive thing that has happened to the department is his departure from it. So where does DCFEMS go from here?  Inevitably, they will hire on a chief with a fire department background who might even end up being former Prince George’s County Fire Chief Eugene Jones.  While there are probably some pretty qualified candidates out there with fire based EMS experience, is that really the right direction for DCFEMS to go or should they make a bolder move? One of the best things about moving down to the mid-Atlantic region of the country is the fact that there is now a WaWa superstore on almost every corner.  It meets all my needs, and more importantly keeps my coffee cup full.  I wonder how much business their coffee provides for them in relation to the groceries, gas pumps, and delis do.  I can tell you, however, that the coffee probably takes up less than a quarter of the actual space in the store.  I am sure though that the general managers that the stores hire are well versed in all sections of their store.  I would find it unusual if they hired someone who said, “Well, I know A LOT about coffee, but the other 80% stuff, I guess I’ll find someone who knows a bit about that too.” On this week’s podcast, David Konig, Sean Eddy, and RJ Stine and I discuss this exact issue.  As a host, I try to “steer the ship” if you will, but sometimes it is hard for me to keep my thoughts contained and not soapbox.  Luckily, in this episode, David Konig said a lot of what I wanted to say.  It is time for DCFEMS to do something different. In a...

This week, Scott Kier is joined by David Konig, Sean Eddy, and later in the show Russell Stine.  The group tackle the resignation of Chief Kenneth Ellerbe of the Washington, DC Fire and EMS Department (DCFEMS) and share their viewpoints about what should be next for the department.  Is this a leadership issue?  A cultural one?  Find out what the group thinks this week on EMS in the New Decade! Read more from David Konig at his blog The Social Medic. Check out Sean Eddy’s blog, Medic Madness. Finally, to see more from RJ Stine, check out his website, Hybrid Medic. To download this week’s podcast, click this link!  Or just use the player below....

Jun 6, 2014

Did you know that this week is National CPR Awareness Week?  In some places, people are celebrating it the right way.  Earlier this week, Governor Quinn of the State of Illinois signed into law a bill requiring high schools to add CPR and AED training to their curriculum.  The bill was created in response to the death of Lauren Laman who died while practicing with the school’s dance team.  Lauren received no prearrival CPR, and although there was an AED nearby, no one received it or thought to use it. Obviously, no one can really know if CPR and the AED would have definitively saved Lauren’s life but at least we would have given her a fighting chance had the skill and the device been used.  The creation of this law is a great thing, and it’s about damn time that somebody somewhere finally got this one right. I remember back in the (late) 1990’s when I was in high school, our junior year health semester was dominated by first aid training.  We learned CPR, but if I remember correctly, while we received the class, we did not receive cards in our pockets.  Looking back, I guess it was better than nothing and a step in the right direction. Think about many of the cardiac arrests that we run.  Someone has to call them in, right?  Whether it is someone at home with the patient or someone in the street with the patient there is someone else there more times than not.  Now, compare that number to the actual number of people who receive pre-arrival CPR.  Emergency Medical Dispatch’s version of pre-arrival instructions are great, but there is nothing better in a situation like that than having the knowledge in your own head of what to do. With the introduction of cell phones, we have conditioned society to call in incidents and make them somebody else’s problem.  It all led to what I liked to call the “third party caller not minding their own business” job.  You know, those calls for the person sleeping on a park bench, or someone who “looks like” they might be in distress.  Occasionally, that caller will stick around...

I’ve struggled with how much of this I should post as it gets rather personal for me in a number of ways.  My final decision is that I should, and need to, lay everything on the line.  I may offend some, others might roll their eyes at some of this but this is my story, like it or not, take it or leave it. Over the last year and a half I have been asked by a number of people in my new system, “Why did you come here?”  My usual answer is “I don’t have enough time to explain it all, which is partially true.  The truth of it all is though that most of the reasons that I left Massachusetts revolve around my tipping point which took place during the first week of June in 2012.  I think it’s time that I set the record straight.  Any statute of limitations I would potentially be violating should have lapsed by now, right? In April and May of that year there was some major restructuring done to AMR’s Northeast Division.  The regional manager was let go and was replaced by a former manager at Rural Metro.  At first, it did not seem to have much impact on us, but I remember being at a training for my part time job at Six Flags and having to step out for an “emergency conference call” to announce the change.  It came as a surprise, of course, but a subdued one at that.  The next few weeks it was “business as usual” in my operation. The first week of June had been a particularly turbulent one in 2011 when I dealt with the worst natural disaster that Springfield endured during my tenure with the tornado that hit on the first, so that week already carried a lot of memories for me.  During those first few days of June of 2012, it seemed like it was just about all that we talked about. The first of June was a Friday, and that day passed rather uneventfully.  I worked the day shift.  Many of us swapped some stories, and we all went home that night feeling good about ourselves....