Starting to get cold...........

[on the job 68]

Nothing that most of us have not seen... but you can tell the cold weather is coming to the North East. Here are a couple of PHOTOS from a recent alarm of a person that had fallen and was feeling dizzy in the New Hamburg Fire District when they responeded the portable CO meter went into alarn while tending to patient in the residence, firefighters conducted a investigation and came across a 20 pound propane tank feeding a portable heater in the home to keep the house warm. When I approached the home owner to explain the concerns for the home onwer and firefighters the home owner statement was "Money is Tight"

[BFD1054 1,552]

Nothing that most of us have not seen... but you can tell the cold weather is coming to the North East. Here are a couple of PHOTOS from a recent alarm of a person that had fallen and was feeling dizzy in the New Hamburg Fire District when they responeded the portable CO meter went into alarn while tending to patient in the residence, firefighters conducted a investigation and came across a 20 pound propane tank feeding a portable heater in the home to keep the house warm. When I approached the home owner to explain the concerns for the home onwer and firefighters the home owner statement was "Money is Tight"

on the job....thanks for sharing these pics. Its pretty troubling that a person would put themselves (and others) in danger in order to heat their homes. Its also a sign of the economic times, which is even more troublesome.

This is a prime example of why "everyday" calls can be a leaning experience as they can get you into homes & businesses. Always keep your eyes and ears open when on these calls, you never know what youll find and you never know when you may be back there.

Edited October 12, 2010 by BFD1054

[RescueKujo 130]

Its pretty troubling that a person would put themselves (and others) in danger in order to heat their homes. Its also a sign of the economic times, which is even more troublesome.

Out here we get folks that think it's okay to use a barbeque to heat the house, not knowing (or not caring) that the charcol put out carbon monoxide, which can kill everyone in the house...

[x635 4,066]

This is why every EMS bag that goes into a residence should have a Carbon Monoxide monitor.

There is a big section in JEMS on CO this month. Looks like they are starting to intergrate it into the Zoll's and Lifepak's. It's really important to monitor this in a patient, especially high risk ones, like firefighters.

Great topic.

[SRS131EMTFF 471]

This is why every EMS bag that goes into a residence should have a Carbon Monoxide monitor.

There is a big section in JEMS on CO this month. Looks like they are starting to intergrate it into the Zoll's and Lifepak's. It's really important to monitor this in a patient, especially high risk ones, like firefighters.

Great topic.

Not just CO, what about Haz-Mat incidents? There are a whopping 27 pages of 1246 pages in the 11th Edition of the Brady Emergency Care by Limmer and O'Keefe (I actually went in and counted). While day to day there may not be very many Haz-Mat incidents, in all likelihood EMS is going to be one of the first services called, a pesticide spill could come in as something benign as a man down, in some areas of this country that ambulance might be the only unit on scene at all. My EMT class (not in NY) had a haz-mat awareness portion built onto it, but we are all not so lucky. Haz-Mat preparedness and training should a larger part of EMS training across the board, we are doing ourselves a disservice by not keeping up on our Haz-Mat awareness and operations.

[Bnechis 3,961]

This is why every EMS bag that goes into a residence should have a Carbon Monoxide monitor.

There is a big section in JEMS on CO this month. Looks like they are starting to intergrate it into the Zoll's and Lifepak's. It's really important to monitor this in a patient, especially high risk ones, like firefighters.

You have 2 different technologies that do radically different things here.

1) A Carbon Monoxide monitor on the jump kit is usually a single gas monitor (made by dozens of companies, like AIM, Scott, MSA etc.) that are always on (ususally for 2 years then discard) it is always "sniffing" for CO. It alarms at 35ppm (at that level a healthy worker can be in it for 8hrs/day - 40hrs/week - for 30 years without harm). It also alarms at 200ppm or higher to warn you only have a few minutes to get out. Since CO is odorless, colorless, tasteless you could walk in and not know you are in danger without this.

We have been using them for years and one memorable call was for a seizure patient in a laundromat. The crews (both FD & EMS) bags started beeping. At 1st the crews thought it was an alarm on one of the dryers, but as the 2nd bag beeped, they knew it was something else and a multi gas detector was brought in. The back room of the laundromat had levels over 800ppm (deadly in minutes). The patient was seizing due to lack of O2 and needed a hyperbaric chamber (not seizure drugs).

2) A RAD57 (massamo) which is the sensor in the lifepak (& zoll?) is used to get a sense of the carboxihemoglobin level in the patients blood. A great tool to determine if a pt with "flu like symptoms" has the flu or CO.

The 1st sensors protect us (cost $200-400) the 2nd help treat the patient ($4,000)