Our department requires that on call firefighters who are wearing shorts when responding to a medical must cover them with either Wildland Gear or Structural gear. Is this an uncommon requirement for the bloodborne pathogens? Or how many departments allow firefighters to wear shorts on alarms?
My Deputy Chief gets very aggrivated when people wear shorts on EMS calls in the summer. He believes you should have long pants on,as do I. Not only for bloddborne issues but for knicks and scrapes you may encounter during patient transport. You never know what your going to come up against and a simple ill patient at the park could turn into a patient that is unresponsive and now you have to move them from under a picnic table...who knows. my point, wearing long pants couldn't be a bad thing. besides,if you keep your overalls on your rack,you can slide them on for the call and slide them back off after. long pants - good idea
WHen I ran call for the ems dept I was on we were given jump suit.. carried them in our car for just when we had calls and we were dressed with shorts or other clothing.. it was nice
well...12 years ago, when I took my EMT, and again 9 years ago when I took my Paramedic, the first things they taught us were...scene safety and BSI. Shorts offer no BSI below the knees.
ok Doc. My main point is that if I am in shorts at the time of the call I'll still be in my shorts when I respond. Now the likelihood of me ever responding in shorts is slim to none as I rarely ever wear shorts. I am usually the one in pants when everyone else is in shorts, no matter what the temperature.
Uniform pants aren't a great infection barrier, either. Tom's point is that the uniform pants are a vector for the infection, and keep it close to your skin until you can change pants. If you have exposed skin, you can just wipe the contaminent away.