A well-armed car wreck...

[SMLE]

...EMS has gotten into the habit of flying out a lot of stuff that doesn't need to be flown. If the EMS crew were good experienced EMTs or more than half-assed Paramedics they should have been able to tell whether or not you had a pneumothorax. Of course other considerations come into play, like what services the local hospital can offer for trauma.

You hit the nail on the head there man. Where I work, we can usually be at the local level 1 trauma center (University of New Mexico Hospital) before the bird can get on scene. The local Vollunteer FDs often call for the chopper just because the call came out as an MVA without ever seeing the scene or sizing it up for level of injuries or entrapment Etc. We roll up, cancel the bird, grab the patient and book it to UMNH.

Not knowing all the details about the care level of the units that responded to E.K.'s accident, the distances involved to the approprriate facility, Etc. The chopper may have been warranted here. But yeah, too many first responders panic and call for it unnecessarily.

FWIW, I'm an EMT-I working on becoming a Paramedic. I've had PHTLS training, so it's only the really advanced ALS procedures I can't do yet. But from what I've seen in my short EMS carreer so far, the best treatment for most trauma is diesel fuel.

 

[Orthonym]

I had spontaneous pneumothorax and collapsed lung back in '04 for a week before I finally gave in and went to the emergency room. The treatment was the same as I would have gotten in 1937, that is, chest tube and suction; they just charged me 21st-century prices for it.

I really do need to be just about fixin-to-die before I will consult the medical people.

 

[paramedic70002]

1. "Bolus of Diesel" saves lives.

2. Every day I work in healthcare, I trust Doctors less and less.

 

[igor]

A guy here in Finland was reported to have achieved the following last Saturday night:

He drove into a ditch at 0.87 pro mille alcohol blood level and got stuck in his car. Didn't have a cell phone or didn't want to use it because of the DUI he was committing. But he did have a shotgun and some ammo. So he shot ca. 30 round into the steering column etc. of the car and freed himself!

Obviously, he also wound up spraying a few cars passing by with shot. By the time he was limping from the scene, the po-po arrived to his aid...

A big wonder (and a shame too) that this moron didn't get a Darwin Award in the process!

 

[english kanigit]

"Bolus of Diesel"

Explanation please? The Kanigit is Klueless...
Ek