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Juniors and the Ambulance
should juniors be allowed to ride ambulance and have patient contact. a junior can see something bad on an MVA but should they help treat it. EMS had more physcological damage then fire, should juniors be allowed to do ems too. if yes, why and what good comes of it, if no why not?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by ashfire on
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Our county has had a high school cadet program along with other counties in the state. You have to take firefighter one, EMT, and CPR for the program and do ride alongs at their stations.
Our two volunteer stations have had juniors with EMT riding third on the ambulance and many of them made great members. They couldn't ride officer or drive until they were eighteen and had training for those.
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Permalink Reply by Steven on
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If you are under the age of 18, the answer will always be no. We don't even like having family members in the back unless it's a parent comforting a child patient or they're both patients.
I understand the junior firefighter's thirst for knowledge and experience and we, as firefighters, should give these future firefighters every opportunity to experience as much as they can and remain safe.
However, in EMS, patient care, your first responsibility is to the patient, period. This is their life on the line, not a junior firefighter.
At the very very least, I might ask one of our explorers to get someone else to help me with patient care, but we expressly prohibit explorers from EMS and MVA calls because of the patient care aspect.
Frankly, on most EMS calls, the fewer people there to "gawk" at the scene, the better. I've walked away from many EMS calls when there are lots of blue lights in the driveway and along the street. Rarely do you need more than four, five firefighters/EMS there for a call.
The exception to keeping manpower limited would be (for the most part) multiple patients, lift assists and/or extended extrication/rescue.
On the flip side, we often use explorers for EMS drills, extrication drills, and the like. They can be victims, they can be EMS, they can be whatever they'd like. If they want to "play EMT" they could if time and manpower allow, but it's not training for them, just exposure.
In NYS, the highest level of care an individual under the age of 18 could qualify for is CPR with AED, First Aid, and/or lifeguard. Anything above that they have to legally be an adult, that's a lot of responsibility and you can go to jail if you are wrong.
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Permalink Reply by FETC on
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Rex,
I understand your excitement for fire and ems, it is addicting. Been there and done that.
There is a reason NREMT requires you to be 18 to take the registry exam, it is called being an adult and level of maturity. Sorry 14 or 15 year old juniors should be either in school, doing homework, playing sports or in bed sleeping during the overnight hours.
If your agency is in need of juniors to fill out EMS crews then they have bigger issues.
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In my volunteer department and most of the others in our county junior members have to keep their school grades up and have to be out of the station on school nights by a set time and if they want to sleep in have to have premission by their parents and the chief to do so. If they want to sleep in on the weekends they have to have premission for that too.
They have to show report cards to the chief and if grades do drop they can be operationally suspended until they show that their grades have improve.
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Permalink Reply by Forrest Post on
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Everyone who's on the explorer/junior program should be allowed to ride in the squad after a year in the post minimum IF they want to.
Our Fire and EMS are separate, But we are allowed to do time at both if we want. There are idiots in the group that can easily screw things over for the rest of us, so a year and permission should be needed from an advisor prior to going on squad calls I think.
For liability, you have to make sure you don't have an idiot in the back trying to touch the patient and that, and should know what you're doing and what is expected to do and not do.
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Permalink Reply by Jake Fireman on
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Ryan, Im sure you're a great kid and if you so desire, Im sure you will make it into the fire department when you are old enough. But a junior is a junior and should be kept off all apparatus until they reach the age of being at least EMT certified. Good luck in your endeavors.
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Permalink Reply by Ben "Batman" Barry on
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In CT the min age for EMR is 14 EMT is 16. I am allowed to ride the ambulance once I go through the paperwork and training requiremnets. There is another post in CT that runs the towns EMS service 24/7 with 3 rigs.
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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on
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The problem with explorers and juniors riding along with EMS boils down to liability, patient privacy, and accountability.
The issue isn't so much "seeing" things on calls, but unless you are an EMT or in actual school training to become an EMT, then there is no reason to be on the ambulance. For one, there is patient privacy, while it is easy for a person to sign something or a release etc, the issue comes down to the patient doesn't have a choice. They dial 911, you can't ask them if it is OK for some HS kid to come along, you have no purpose on the call if there just to observe. Not every person is going to be comfortable with someone riding along for either the "thrill of the job" or in the name of observation.
The other issue is liability and like privacy, one can sign a release etc, etc, but again what happens when you are returning from that "cleared to go on call" and you get another call which can be dangerous, demanding, or questionable? Fine, you may have CPR, but if you are not a sworn member of the dept or organization and you do something wrong, who is in trouble? Chances are the EMTs allowing you to ride, after all it is their license, all you have is a CPR cert.
Then there is the exposure issue to contend with, people carry all sorts of nasties on them, bloodborne, airborne, etc. So what happens when you are on a call and the hospital calls the day later and says the pt you have been exposed to has active TB? So who pays for your testing and or treatments? You signed a release remember? A student has some coverage in that area, the explorer riding along doesn't. So who becomes liable then because you have been exposed?
Then there is accountability and if you haven't noticed, I presented the aspects in the other situations. Accountability comes down to the person in charge and dept. A patient can sue the dept and you could be named because you were there. There are issues if you are exposed to something, who is responsible for the testing and treatments etc?
To me, it is stupid to have kids riding along on an ambulance and they can wait until they are able to go to school for EMT. There is no reason for kids to observe an ambulance crew in action, there are just too many issues that can come back and bite you.
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Permalink Reply by ff/emt 2155 on
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NO WAY no way i've seen people that are so called 20yr olds and emt cert that dont belong on the squad no experience for the fast pace of ems you could get hurt you could hurt someone else sorry kid i just have a thorn in my side with non experience personel being in back with you and i know the old addage how r we supposed to get experience if we dont ride along just wait your time one day you will be saying i had enough and be done with it but until then no way
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Permalink Reply by Norm Tindell on
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Train, train and train some more, but don't ride out until your are either certified or doing practicals for EMT school. Nothing personal, but younger folks typically do not have enough maturity to make solid decisions in emergency situations. Soak up what you can around the station. Be patient.
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Permalink Reply by Spanner 122 on
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Definitely not. The only people who should have patient contact after arrival of EMS is EMS with the help of Fire (or Police). I love the Junior/Explorer program, but have a real problem with response. I think it's bad enough that young men and ladies are able to respond and expose themselves to carcinogenic environments at such a young age, as well as exposed to the risks involved in getting there. Ask the young man's family who was run over while responding on his bicycle, or the junior who wasn't buckled in and fell out on a corner when the door opened, etc.
Liability, legalities, proper patient care, etc are HUGE issues.
I would also run the risk of arguing the statement that EMS has more psychological damage than fire, simply because you would have to run both to know and it depends on the member.
Short answer, No.
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Steven,
First off there is no reason whatsoever that a person who is not an EMT or a student learning to be an EMT should be riding in an ambulance. What is even scarier is you say those who do ride with your dept are practicing under the EMT's license...unless they are a student, they serve NO purpose whatsoever in the back of the ambulane, it doesn't take much of an F up to lose a license, especially because a person with no purpose was operating under someone else's. One day when you get a license and understand the time and effort put forth, you wouldn't want people with no purpose riding along either.
As for the other stuff you guys get to do, seriously do a search on the other threads about juniors and explorers and minors operating in the capacity of firefighters. It will seriously save you some headaches in trying to somehow justify the reasoning and saying "it works here" isn't a good argument.
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