Tuesday, February 26, 2019

I don't know why firefighters are sent out to be search and rescue, or EMTs, when there are no fires. Makes no sense. But, they are, and when they get sent to a big freeway crash zone of iced up roads, the firetrucks and emts get in the path of destruction. 4 EMTs were hospitalized in Nebraska

2 comments:

  1. We go out on SAR because we are trained to do that, have the man power, and have the best skill set to deal with what we find - exposure, injuries, dead bodies, etc. I live in northern Maine and this time of year we have idiots doing all kinds of stuff that require us to go into harms way for them. I'd say it's what we get paid for but in my area, most of us are unpaid volunteers. We do it because someone has to and we care about helping others. Well, that and the siren and lights are kinda cool (the 8 year old in all of us comes out sometimes:) )...

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    1. It seems to me that EMTs should stick to emergencies, and fire fighting trained people ought to not be sent out to help old people get across the room to use the bathroom, simply in response to a 911 call.
      I hope that make it easy to see what I'm talking about. Sure, people can do a lot of things, and have overlapping job responsibilities... and do it all really well.
      Not my point.
      EMTs used to hang out and help at hospitals and focus on learning medicine until a call came in from 911 for an ambulance, and then the EMTs would zip to the scene that needed medical professionals to save lives, and transport injured to a hospital.
      Firefighters used to train to fight fires, and would hang around the fire station until 911 was called and then they'd hurry over to put out fires.
      Those were the simple old Norman Rockwell days when people did one job, really well.
      Then the 70s buffered us from the cool 60s until the recession was over and the 80s took over and changed everything, when suddenly everyone and every thing was broke, and we had to merge so many public service jobs.
      No one paved the road or fixed potholes anymore, no more ambulances because they could send a firetruck instead, but they couldn't send an ambulance to put out a fire.
      I've been an involuntary firefighter, because when you crew a sub, and are out to sea, you're fighting any fire, or flood, until the problem is solved.
      I'd still rather have fire fighters show up. And when we had to deal with medical emergencies, I'd have rather had medics show up.
      But the world doesn't have enough payroll anymore to handle fires and medical emergencies separately.
      I'd be a volunteer fire fighter again, but I'm not in that type of environment anymore. Now I'm in the big city and all that stuff is handled by big departments that don't need volunteers and rarely hire anyone anyway

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