[ccw007]

I have been wondering about happens to your carry gun if you are unconscious. Say if you are in a car accident or have something like a heart attack and you are not conscious. Does the police take it and hold on to it until you claim it or is it sent with you to the hospital to be giving to your relatives? If you are in a store and have say a heart attack does EMS call the police to take the gun? I am sure this will vary from city to city, but I would like to see how this has been handled by our LEO and EMS members out there.

[beerslurpy]

Depends where you are carrying. I imagine the first person to look for my wallet will find mine, at which point they will hopefully not pocket the gun or throw it away in horror.

Still, I imagine they hold on to stuff because of evidence and so on. If you later turn out to be a felon, fugitive, unlicensed person, etc, do you think the police are going to say "Oh gosh we cant remember where we put the gun. Guess we'll have to let you go?" No, of course someone will have tagged it and put it somewhere. The trick might be in recovering it afterwards, depending on where you lived.

[ssteven1]

I am a paramedic and this is our county policy. We carry a gun case in the ambulance. If one of our patients tells us they have a gun or one if found on a pt (in the case of the patient being unconscious) we take the gun and put it in the gun case and seal the case with a seal we keep in the case. We have a tag that we give half to the pt with their information and the other half is kept with the gun by putting the hole of the tag though the seal. we the call the local law enforcement and give them the gun in the case. The patient is supposed to be able to retrieve the gun later at the police dept. I never had to do this yet in practice.

[bakert]

I asked a police officer about this a few months ago. He told me he honestly didn't know but assumed the gun would be kept and could be picked up by the owner or family later. After reading ssteven's reply I think I'm going to ask some of the firemen in my area since I believe they're combined with EMS here around Louisville now and make most of the emergency runs. Also maybe talk to some of the ambulance people from the different companies.

[goalie]

We have a lock-box in our ER. It is labeled clearly with a sticker that says "GUN BOX" right on it. :)

[MillCreek]

Back when I was doing the paramedic thing twenty years ago for King County EMS, we dealt with this all the time. I would take the firearm, unload it, put it and the loose ammo into a plastic bag and tie it shut, and when we got to the ER, give it to hospital security to put into the safe. I always recorded a description and serial number; i.e.: 'blue Walther PPK/S, serial number 1234567' on our trip sheet. The patient picks it up at the time of discharge along with the rest of their valuables. Since we didn't pat down the patient, sometimes the ER staff found it in a pocket or whatever when the patient was being treated in the ER. It frankly was not a very big deal.

[rms/pa]

got sandbagged by my wife(love her dearly) and ended up in the hospital
for a heart cath. model 85 in my pocket. when changing into the gown
to go get reamed. i asked the nurse about my firearm. she locked it in her relief's locker with a note to her.
when i came off the happy meds and they let me up to walk, the nurse brought me a fresh gown with my taurus inside it. her explanation was the hospitals security folks were not the thickest pencils in the drawer and should not handle firearms.

rms/pa

[El Tejon]

Labor Day weekend, Indianapolis, 1995 I was "T-boned" on the driver's side by a 20 year kid on dope in a pick up truck. I remember waking up over the passenger seat hanging from my belt.

The Sheriff's deputy took my pistol. After I checked out with the paramedics, he gave it back to me.

[armoredman]

A friend was in an accident many years ago, that left the inprint of his face pushing out the windshield. Amazingly enough, nothing was seriously broken, and when he came to, a Sheriff Deputie was asking him if he was alive. He told the deputy to take his revolver, so he could go kick the rear end of the kid who had just trashed his brand new car. The deupty did take his weapon, did not allow him to assault the kid, but did tell him he would feel the same way. He got it back about 2 hours later, IIRC.

[deanf]

We don't have a policy about it. We would secure it and call for cops and turn it over to them, most likely. After that, who knows?

But cops around here are not out to take peoples guns, so it probably wouldn't be a big deal.

[fredcwdoc]

Been a firefighter for 27 years and have had this happen a couple of times. All cases being auto accidents. Had one patient remove and unload prior to our arrival and let us know he had a firearm before we started any care and he had a family member secure it.

Our department has no written policy and the other times it happened we unloaded the firearm and either gave it to the County police or the State Police. These were cases where the patient was in serious condition and did not have the ability to have someone secure it and we didn't have time to wait around. We really have no place to secure a firearm anyway. Our medic units have narc safes but they are to small.

Cases involving a known firearm we will stage out of the area until a police officer arrives and secures the scene. If there is/was a firearm around they will have secured it before we go in (we hope).

[CAS700850]

I got my Glock 19 this way. Man was involved in a fatal car crash. Glock was found in the car, collected by the police. After it was run through thesystem to verify man was the owner, it was turned over to his widow. She wanted nothing to do with it, and asked my friend, an attorney handling the estate, to dispose of it. He called several gun shpos, who told him a Gl;ock 19 in very good condition with only one mag was worth no more than $150 or $200 at most. Friend asked me about these prices, I looked at the gun, and said it was worth at least $300, which is what the widow agreed to sell it to me for. Of course, it had evidence markings on it, but they came right off with a little WD-40 and Hoppes.

[artjs]

I just HAVE to inject a bit of humor here :p

I have a very well trained pistol. Not only do I have it trained to not shoot by itself (without my finger actually on and pulling the trigger), I have it trained to automatically go into the lock box in the vehicle when it sees that I am knocked out.

I figure that this is the best way to train a pistol so it not only doesn't 'go off by itself' but also make itself safe when I'm not awake so it doesn't hurt any liberals by accident. :neener:



Sorry guys & gals..... I just had to say that!!!

Art :evil:

[Guns_and_Labs]

When I was a paramedic (long ago), we were supposed to let the responding officer take the weapon into custody at the scene. Even for the most routine of calls, we always had a deputy sheriff hanging around somewhere nearby.

[MillCreek]

When I was a paramedic (long ago), we were supposed to let the responding officer take the weapon into custody at the scene. Even for the most routine of calls, we always had a deputy sheriff hanging around somewhere nearby.

I am impressed by those EMS agencies that had a local LE response to their calls. That sure doesn't happen very much at all up here in the Seattle area, unless it is a crime scene or a major traffic accident. Your typical heart attack, 'man down', kid with a seizure or whatever would never get a LE response in addition to us. Although I will say that if we ever did call for LE assistance, they sure were good about sending about 75% of the sector cars along with some extras!

[deanf]

That sure doesn't happen very much at all up here in the Seattle area

Which I think is good. I don't need cops parking in the way, fighting fires the wrong way (it's a labor issue, for the love of mike);) and generally hanging around in pt's houses, getting all what's going on? got any drugs in the house? can I see your ID please?

[fredcwdoc]

+1

[MillCreek]

I have found that a 360 joule shock, repeated as necessary, works well to get rid of the lookie-loos. :uhoh:

[el44vaquero]

According to the liberals it springs to life and goes on a killing rampage and won't stop until the streets run red with the blood of blind orphaned bible-salesmen. :neener:

[444]

This subject has come up several times before on here. Like a few others, I have worked as a professional paramedic for over 20 years and have had this situation come up several times.
First of all, we have never received any training on this subject and don't have any SOPS to deal with it. I am absolutely sure that if I actually asked someone they would either not answer or would come up with an answer that they thought would limit our liability to nothing.
Back to the real world, I have done pretty much everything mentioend already. I have had patients ask if they could just give the gun to their wife and I said they certainly could. I have had woman with guns in their purses who I told that their guns would be locked up by hospital security. I have had the police take custody of them and I have personally unloaded them and gave them to hospital security myself.
Unfortunately, what actually happens will depend to a HUGE extent on who the paramedic is. Like any other group of people, there will be liberal bliss ninny paramedics who will make a real big drama out of it and there will also be a whole lot of people who really don't care and have better things to worry about.
We seldom have a police response on our calls and even when we do, we usually beat them in by a significant margin.

[longeyes]

Try SOL.

Perhaps they need to be made with self-destruct switches?