No. 4 Year Olds Allowed

Spent last week entertaining half dozen 4 & 5 year olds at Station #4 for a birthday party. The birthday boy was concerned because when they drove by the station earlier in the week he saw a large sign that read: No. 4 and he thought four-year olds were prohibited from visiting the station.

The good news is he was turning 5 but some of his friends were still 4! Once assured that we would ‘bend’ the rules he as a happy camper.

Although you think 5 year olds would be excited they were a little intimidated at first. But after donning some gear, climbing on the trucks and throwing a little water they felt much better.

TLA…..not during EMT Class

EMT Week 3 (or four)....

Three Letter Acronyms are the least of my concerns during EMT training. The entire course is littered with MLA (Multi-Letter Acronyms) which are actually very helpful in assessing patients and performing treatment.

Lets start with the simple one:

• PPE: Personal Protective Equipment
• ABC: Airway, Breathing, Circulation
• AVPU: Alert, Vocal, Painful, Unresponsive
• DCAP-BTLS: Deformity, Contusion, Abrasion, Puncture/Penetration, Bruising, Tenderness, Laceration & Swelling
• SAMPLE: Symptoms, Allergy, Medicines, Pertinent History, Last oral intake, events leading up
• OPQRST: Onset, Provokes, Quality, Radiation, Severity & Time

That is only the first few chapters of training. So far we have managed trauma and medical assessment, airway management, vitals, scene size up and lifting.

Great class.

Time to Start Blogging EMT

EMT Training

Two weeks in and we finally started some hands on training. The first few classes have focused on the physiology & anatomy. I enjoyed back in high school and still find interesting. I think I’ll experience more medical/rescue calls than I will fire calls during my time in Eden Prairie so I am very motivated to learn it and perform it well.

Hands On tonight is not quite the same as the fire department but still very interesting.
Tonight we focused on three stations:

Chair Stair- a uniquely designed chair to transport people up/down stairs to an ambulance/stretcher. This device will certainly save backs and make life easier for patients and EMT’s.

Stretcher Operations – Operating a stretcher is more than pushing a wheeled cart from door to ambulance. It looks simple (and it is) but getting some hands on experience in lowering, raising and moving in/out of an ambulance certainly helps.

And finally, we did airway management. O2 Operations; oropharyngeal & nasopharyngeal airway; suction and artificial respiration with a Bag Valve Mask.