" Medics Refused to Enter the Zoo"

[docB]

In describing the EMS response to the tragedy at the San Fransisco zoo this article makes three seperate statements about how the responding medics refused to enter the zoo until the scene was secured. We recognize that this is absolutely and without question the proper thing for these responders to do and that by doing otherwise they would have been placing themselves, the police responders, zoo personnel and the victims at greater danger. But just read the way the media presents it.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,318996,00.html

It was unclear whether letting police and medics into the zoo sooner would have altered the outcome of the attacks or subjected emergency responders to greater danger with a tiger on the loose.

Unclear? That's crap. It's perfectly clear that EMS responders do not enter an unsafe scene. Period!

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[emttim]

In describing the EMS response to the tragedy at the San Fransisco zoo this article makes three seperate statements about how the responding medics refused to enter the zoo until the scene was secured. We recognize that this is absolutely and without question the proper thing for these responders to do and that by doing otherwise they would have been placing themselves, the police responders, zoo personnel and the victims at greater danger. But just read the way the media presents it.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,318996,00.html



Unclear? That's crap. It's perfectly clear that EMS responders do not enter an unsafe scene. Period!

Well, that's just more proof that news reporters and journalists basically get paid to just lie and hurt other people either through slander, verbal attack, or whatnot. I'm not surprised; the media is populated by some of the most soulless and immoral pieces of trash I've ever seen. This article is actually not even nearly as one-sided and inflammatory as a Sacramento Bee article I read half a year ago about how allegedly the amount of medics abusing the drugs on the ambulances is out of control, blah blah blah.

Although yeah that's pretty clear to me...if someone told me to enter a scene that wasn't secured which had a tiger on the loose, I would tell them to kindly go to hell. I'd rather have the patient's family grieving for him instead of both that and my family and my partner's family grieving for us as well.

 

[leviathan]

That wasn't too bad, especially coming from Faux News.

 

[jkelly2]

It's from the Associated Press.

 

[docB]

That wasn't too bad, especially coming from Faux News.

As jkelly points out this was the AP wire story so it's on many sites and papers.

 

[pseudoknot]

According to this story from the SF Chronicle, both police and EMS were denied access initially:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/29/MNDVU65TO.DTL

And when fire crews and police arrived at the zoo, they were forced to wait outside for precious minutes by zoo security guards enforcing an emergency lockdown, emergency dispatch logs indicate.

I think the AP article DocB posted wasn't well written, but I think we can all agree that letting the police in earlier may have been a good idea.

As for the point about EMS crews not entering unsecured scenes, yes, we all know that, but I don't think that's well understood by the public or the average reporter. Most people see TV shows where cops run into dangerous scenes without even calling for backup and assume that's what all emergency responders are supposed to do. Perhaps the best way to handle this would be to write a polite letter to your local news outlet that clarifies this point.

PS from the article I posted above:

Sousa Sr. [father of deceased victim] said he didn't blame the policy that kept firefighters at bay while they waited for a police escort.

"They didn't want to risk their lives," he said. "If I was a paramedic and didn't know the person that was in there, I probably would have done the same thing. I would have waited until I got the OK."

 

[146233]

Scene safety simply doesn't seem to be well understood by 'outsiders'. Maybe a year or two ago, we had a CFD paramedic suspended for a month because he got into a fistfight with a patient just outside the door of the destination hospital. Fine, no arguments there. The two other paramedics who stood and watched were also suspended for failing to intervene. One of those two paramedics committed suicide later that year.

 

[Vee]

EMS has been made into "heroes" by the general public (blame tv shows, blame the media, whoever). People don't comprehend that, as EMTs and paramedics, it's not our job to knowingly risk our own selves (unlike fire/police, who regularly run towards burning buildings and bad guys with guns). Plus, what good are we to an injured person if we get injured (or worse) too?