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Scanner Land
Im pretty sure everybody has this problem but my station ran a wreck last week at about 2 am on some small back road. When we got there there was one vehicle on its top in the middle of the road and the driver and passengers had ran from the scene. So all we were doing was traffic control and waiting on the deputy to arrive. After ten minutes we keep getting more and more people showing up and getting out of their cars to come look at the car that had fliped. We kept telling them that they needed to go back to their cars and wait or turn around . Nobody listens, we keep telling them over and over but they kept on pushing closer. somebody started counting how many people were there and it ended up being about 40 to 50 people. keep in mind the road is a dead end and there are maybe 20 houses on that road. The deputy finally got there and tried to help us but it didnt do any good. the few of us that were there had to make a wall to try to hold people back while the wrecker fliped the car back over and hooked it up. I have been with the fire service for about 5 years now and i have never seen any scene as bad as that one. And every one of them said they heard it on their scanners. What is wrong with people.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Craig Prusansky on
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There have been some great replies to this. Unfortunately, if you are out in the "boonies", the actions of "taking control of the scene" and "getting law enforcement to do their job" may not be feasible. I work in a rural area where we cover about 40 miles of a heavily travelled major road (US 27). An incident on this may attract a whole bunch of people. On our initial assignment to this road, there are only 6 fire-rescue responders (3 in an engine, 3 in a rescue-ambulance) and 1 or 2 deputies.
Imagine if there had been someone inside of that car that had flipped. All 6 people would pretty much be tasked with either safety, patient care, or extrication. The IC and the one deputy (and their backup can very well be 30 minutes away because of the remoteness of our area) stand a good chance of not being able to handle crowd control. I'm sorry, but it just isn't reasonable to expect an IC and one deputy to handle a crowd of 50 or so people. And in our case, you can't just "call the State Police or Fire Police" because the closest troopers are usually about an hour away, and we do not have Fire Police in our area.
One other option to consider is: if you can't get them to leave, put them to work.
I don't mean putting them into the "hot zone" or "inner circle". But, rather, using the crowd to police the crowd. The IC (or Safety Officer, if one is assigned), could select a small handful of people and tell them that we need their help ... and that they would be most helpful in keeping the other people back. If the deputy is on the ball, he should be doing this as well.
Fire scene tape works well too ... not that it physically holds people back, but it is like drawing a line in the sand, where if people see something physical, they may be less inclined to cross it.
It is human nature to want to see exciting things ... they are not doing it because they enjoy seeing bad things happen to people (usually), they are doing it because it is exciting to them. How many people watch NASCAR just for the crashes? How many people watch hockey just for the fights? Same thing ... that's why they do it, as annoying to us emergency responders as it may be.
Capt. Craig
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Permalink Reply by Ben "Batman" Barry on
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I have seen the same problem. I will admit I do have 2 scanners and do sometimes chase after calls but i never got in the way. I have seen other people/emergency responders sleep with their scanners and chase every call. I have noticed that some departments trunk or use encrypted frequiences. In a situation like that all you can do is try to be professional.
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Permalink Reply by Dennis Hiscock on
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i have a scanner...actually 3 to be exact....for the most part I have it because my beeper don't work in some spots in the next town, most members do have these scanners on their pov, local PD does like the idea of people listening to "scanner land" because they can actually get help if they need it....I don't use the scanner for any other reason....but it can be a real pain in the a$$ when on scene and all those people are in the way, it's always one way to find out who in the public has these scanners because they are always on scene
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Permalink Reply by Robert St. Germain on
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not only that tey can say they are nurses and stuff, but who really knows. Might be some psycho.
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Permalink Reply by Smoke Eater on
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LOL....So I've noticed! But I gotta say, you medic guys and gals got your stuff together!!!
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Permalink Reply by Michael A. Pimental on
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I agree i always try to be professional on the job. You never know when you may run into them again. My biggest issue has been the Rn's who think they know so much more about our job then we do. For example a lady gave her husband who had symptoms of a stroke ASA because the daughter (who was a nurse) told her too. When I explained to the wife that in the future you never give ASA to someone who may be having a stroke she goes "my daughters a nurse". I simply said ok while thinking to myself all sorts of things haha. lucky for him it wasn't a brain aneurysm.
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I think that in some situations nurses and doctors can help on some scenes, but i dont think they understand that when it is all said and done the liability falls on the fire dept and rescue squad. They can do what ever they want to at the hospital but on a scene we are in charge.
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Permalink Reply by gary lee craft on
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pull off a section of hose and start spraying
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Permalink Reply by jim quick on
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that sounds likea spectacular idea but very unprofessional...i myself have 2 scanners and a discotinued min2 on an amp I work for a privite ambulance service and volunteer ive been on multiple calls where people just show up talkin like they now what is going on i even had some random guy ask me if we have set a second lead out
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Permalink Reply by capcityff on
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If someone tries to help because they are a doctor then you just tell them that since they are higher trained they have to transport to the hospital as well. We technically can't transfer care to someone lower and neither can they. When they hear that they have to come with they will back off.
As for the original post, I've never really had the problem like that. Usually we have plenty of police in populated areas. Lucky for us, we have more police per capita than any city in the country. Most are extra agencies downtown but that's where a crowd would usually happen. People are nosey and will stare at whats going on but for the most part it's not a huge problem. In a city like Washington, DC everyone is always in a hurry. They hear sirens all day and night. Most are so annoyed by them that they could care less about what's going on and rarely move out of the way for us. So we have some problems but they are different than those of a small volly department. I guess the citizens all know each other there whereas in a large city they could care less about who's hurt.
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Permalink Reply by Derek J Sinesi on
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I know several people in the area that have scanners. They never show up on the scene. Our fire police respond to every call with us. They do a pretty good job at keeping unwanted people out of the scene.
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