No Scene is Safe: My Kids Need Me to Come Home
http://www.emslive.com/articles/22/1/No-Scene-is-Safe-My-Kids-Need-Me-to-Come-Home/Page1.html
Greg Friese, MS, NREMT-P
Greg Friese, MS, NREMT-P is president of Emergency Preparedness Systems LLC. EPS helps clients create, design, distribute, and facilitate rapid e-learning for emergency responders. Greg and EPS subject matter experts have authored and edited more than 200 hours of online education programs for first responders, EMTs and paramedics. Greg is a paramedic, Wilderness Medical Associates lead instructor and EMS author. Tell him your e-learning needs at eps411.com. By Greg Friese, MS, NREMT-P
Published on 05/2/2008
There is no such thing as a truly safe scene. Instead our goals should be to identify risks - real and perceived - and to mitigate those risks. Risk identification can be practiced and improves with experience.
No Scene is Safe
At the start of every shift I turn to the ambulance crew chief and explain, "I have a three year old son and 10 month old daughter. They and their mother need me to come home tonight. Please make good decisions about driving." The risks of driving or riding in an emergency vehicle are made obvious every week in the headlines at www.emsresponder.com, but driving is just one of the many risks EMS providers face.
After asking the crew chief to help get me home safely I am still responsible for making good decisions about wearing proper personal protective equipment. Appropriate PPE includes hearing, eye, and fall protection, as well as bloodborne pathogen protection. My long-term health - sight, hearing, and back strength - are just as important to me as the driver's decisions.
Last Septemeber at the National Association of EMS Educators conference a presenter described how paramedic students enter his patient assessment station and robotically mumble, "scene safe, BSI." The students, who are usually experienced EMT-basics, are routinely derailed if he simply replies, "the scene is not safe." They are not prepared to identify and mitigate risks that make the simulated scene unsafe.
There is no such thing as a truly safe scene. Instead our goals should be to identify risks - real and perceived - and to mitigate those risks. Risk identification can be practiced and improves with experience. Try these ideas to make sure you go home at the end of every shift.
- As you approach every patient look for at least three threats to your safety - ranging from the trivial to the catastrophic. After the call compare your list with your partner's list.
- Don't become a scene safety robot. Many accident reports start with "I never expected..." Instead, develop a mental routine, like a pilot's preflight check list, that you review on every call before you exit the vehicle.
- Read the news stories about emergency vehicle accidents. Apply the lessons learned to your own operations.
- Visit the International Association of Fire Chief's website and read the report - The Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Fire Fighters and EMS Responders. A colleague with nearly 30 years of service as a firefighter paramedic recently told me he did not realize how chronically sleep deprived he was until he retired. Sleep - or lack of it - can have a significant impact on your ability to identify and mitgate risk.
Finally, RapidCE.com has a growing library of safety lessons for EMTs and Firefighters. While safety is addressed in nearly every lesson, some lessons focus on specific topics that will help you understand, identify, and mitigate risks.