Open Airways: Stories from the back of the ambulance
In Extremis
Susie Kochevar
“The blood sugar on a four-month old was 400. And I thought it must be a mistake, so we rechecked the blood sugar and again it came back over 400.” Susie Kochevar, RN and Health Care Coordinator for the North Las Vegas Fire Department, describes how she learned about an interesting aspect of pediatric physiology that could impact the emergency care of young patients.
Open Airways is a project to capture an oral history for the benefit of the EMS Community. EMS responders share some of the most meaningful cases of their careers, sometimes with humor and always with compassion. We hope that they will help us improve your practice and inspire a new generation of caregivers.
This series is produced by FISDAP with the support of EMSResponder.com. Listen to the latest features here and look for the series archive at openairways.net.
To share your most meaningful case and the lesson it taught you, call FISDAP Open Airways at 1.651.314.7424
Open Airways: Stories from the back of the ambulance
Defining Moment
Tom Reynolds
EMT Tom Reynolds of the UCLA campus ambulance service talks about “listening to your gut” when making decisions about patient care. He tells the story of one patient he decided to transport to the nearest hospital rather than to the family’s chosen facility. When they got to the ER, he learned he had made the right choice, as the patient was having an MI and was going into renal failure.
During his next shift he asked the nurse how the patient had fared. “He says, ‘Well, she coded right after you guys left … we ended up reviving her’ … I immediately thought that had I not made that decision, she probably would have coded on me in the back of the ambulance.” Tom recalls this as the first time he was able to make a decision that created a better outcome for the patient.
Open Airways is a project to capture an oral history for the benefit of the EMS Community. EMS responders share some of the most meaningful cases of their careers, sometimes with humor and always with compassion. We hope that they will help us improve your practice and inspire a new generation of caregivers.
This series is produced by FISDAP with the support of EMSResponder.com. Listen to the latest features here and look for the series archive at openairways.net.
To share your most meaningful case and the lesson it taught you, call FISDAP Open Airways at 1.651.314.7424
EMSC Day – the History and Future
EMSC Day - the History and Future
Bob Waddell
Robert K. Waddell, II, discusses how his fear of caring for kids inspired him to go into pediatric prehospital care education and training. After the EMSC program recruited his involvement in 1998, he worked with them, additional associations and the government to create EMSC Day, which became official in 2000.
“Organizations, institutions, communities, regions and even states are recognizing that the care of children had been a neglected area for many years,” Waddell says, and “there’s still plenty of work to do to increase it …and it does help the overall foundation of EMS week, of making sure make sure we don’t have any population left behind in our care.”
Resources:
EMS for Children Day 2009
EMS for Children Day 2009
Melanie Jarreau, EMSC
Melanie Jarreau, Chair of the Louisiana Governor’s Advisory Council for EMSC, shares the story of her daughter, whose death as an infant inspired her to lobby for improvements in emergency pediatric care in Louisiana, contributing to the passage of a Louisiana Emergency Response Network to address time-sensitive injuries.
As EMS for Children Day approaches as part of this EMS Week, Jarreau appeals to responders to always remain fully trained and fully equipped for pediatric emergencies. “Those skills and those resources get a little rusty sometimes…. Make sure you have your refreshers and you feel confident and make sure you have the proper equipment and abilities to handle a child when that call comes in.”
Resources:
Stimulus Funding Explained
Stimulus Funding Explained
Domingo Herraiz, Motorola
Among the many sources of government grant money, more than $2.5 billion in funding is now available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), also known as the U.S. stimulus package. In this May 14, 2009 podcast, grant expert Domingo Herraiz provides a walk-through on how to locate and take advantage of these resources.
Herraiz, formerly a Department of Justice (DOJ) funding and policy expert, now directs Motorola’s Government and Enterprise Funding Programs
Herraiz has more than 23 years of government and public safety experience in dealing with local, state and federal policies. Most recently, he served as the U.S. Senate-confirmed director of the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), leading the DOJ’s largest funding and policy unit for state, local and tribal criminal justice issues. Prior to his role as director of the BJA, Herraiz served as the deputy director of the BJA and director of Criminal Justice Services for the state of Ohio.
Among the resources discussed is Motorola’s recently launched site, Motorola - American Recovery Act (ARRA), which provides webinars, guides, and further information about available grants and funding.
For additional resources discussed in this podcast, visit http://grants.gov and www.recovery.gov.
Additional grant features and resources are located at www.emsresponder.com/grants.
ACEP on EMS Week 2009
ACEP on EMS Week 2009
Marshall Gardner
EMSResponder.com connects with ACEP to discuss this year’s EMS Week, which runs May 17-23, as well as other ACEP current news. ACEP sponsors the annual National Emergency Medical Services Week to bring communities and providers together, to publicize safety and to honor those on medicine’s “front line.” ACEP’s Marshall Gardner provides a brief history of EMS Week, what the program has evolved into today, and why agencies should be involved.
To learn more about the program, download materials or contact ACEP about your EMS Week activities, visit www.emsweek.org. For more related content visit EMSResponder.com’s EMS Week Resource Guide at www.emsresponder.com/resources. (After May 2009 find it at www.emsresponder.com/resources/archives/.)