Ask A Medic

Any advice on road rash from a motorcycle accident?

 

What did you do?

 

just wondering cuz its bound to happen one of these days

 

got in an accident on his motorcycle....

 

but theres really not a whole lot you can do for abrasions... keep it clean and tough it out for a week or so

 

Actually, a lot depends on the severity. Deep abrasions can be a lot like burns.

Which is to say you don't want them. The little ones; like falling off a skateboard, can be cleaned and dressed with Saran Wrap if you need to keep the spooge off your clothes (acts a bit like skin does). The deeper ones that come with motorcycle accidents can be deep and full of debris-this is the part where wearing gear (please tell me you don't ride in shorts and a wife beater) helps a lot because those will need to be cleaned in the ER and it will hurt like a m-fer.

I could rustle up some stories (pretty girls wearing short shorts who will probably not be wearing them anymore because of the scars the abrasions left) with pictures but I'd rather not. I'd just ask you to trust me on this one-you slide, it hurts.

 

Anybody work for Rural Metro? Found this in this morning's news.

RM was the low cost provider for Santa Clara County. Recall they had issues with response times not too long ago. Doesn't bode well for them that there are some questionable dealings with a former member of the Board of Supervisors either.

 

I used to work for RMA...they are an evil, evil company.

They took over 911 for sumter county FL (the agency used to be Lake-sumter EMS....now just Lake County EMS). And screwed a lot of very good EMS workers who worked for Lake-sumter.

And they are screwing up bad. They promised 8 min response times, in a very, very rural county. They only have about 10 trucks to cover the county, usually only about 6-8 because there are always some OOS. Their response times are more like 15 minutes.

They paid a 160,000 fine in the first month of service to sumter because they were violating their response time contract...and continue to pay fines vs. spending the money to buy more/put on more trucks.

Sumter went looking elsewhere because they weren't happy with Lake-sumter EMS...well the grass isn't always greener...and they are suffering for it.

(Lake-sumter EMS is/was a private co. subsidy of Lake and sumter county)

PITIFUL.... Glad I don't work for that (RMA) god-forsaken company anymore.

 

In the bay of Foothills Regional Hospital. Largest Trauma centre in Alberta.

They've generous shrunk the bay down from 6 to 4 ambulance spots. Pricks...

 

You could substitute "Santa Clara County" for "Sumter" and the story would be the same. Been a crappy situation all around. Most of the people are ex-AMR and I'm not sure what the county will do next. Let's hope it's not something shittier.

 

haix r1s or Redback rescue boots? (cant do the slip ons cause my foot is too narrow)

 

This shit has been going on for months. The field employees are, as someone said, basically all the former AMR- SCC people. They are still not in agreement with the Union on a contract, which was a stipulation of the 911 contract with the county. To make matters worse, the employees decided to get rid of NEMSA, and choose different union representation... Apparently the new union has yet to successfully negotiate a contract ever... From the perspective of an employee of the IFT side (same union as 911) the union negotiations seemed like a whole lot of talk and no forward movement... The 911 side actually voted to approve a strike, which is unheard of for quite some time.

As far as actual compliance goes, it wasn't an average of 15 minute response times when they agreed to 8 minutes... Whatever time they agreed to, they were supposed to make that time for 90% of calls... There were two months (not consecutive) where they were not meet that 90% time, but it was not by some huge marigin. IIRC they were at ~89.50 one month, and ~89.75 another, which is what the County is considering a breach of contract.

I worked for their IFT side up until the 16th of this month. Had to quit without notice... Hated to do it like that, but they refused to move me to part time and I was presented an opportunity that I would've been a fool to pass on.

Haix here. On my second pair and love them.

 

The agreement is 12 minutes; 90% of the time.

Technically speaking, if you agree to provide a service and you cannot meet your part of the agreement then you are in violation. 83% and 89.57% are not 100% which is what they and the county agreed to. There have also been ongoing issues with equipment levels as well.

For what it's worth, RM has also paid SCC almost $5 million in fines over the life of the contract (~2 years). Which means there are plenty of times they are 'late' to a call or don't have equipment available to meet contract requirements.

But their bigger problem is money. I don't know what their operating costs are but their bid was considerably lower than AMR's was when the county signed the deal. They've recently missed a bond payment & continue to have financial problems which means there is a very real possibility Rural Metro could default on their obligation both to the county and their employees.

BTW, the county is not innocent either. In my opinion, they failed their due diligence obligation when bidding the contract. Had they done due diligence, they would not have ignored the company's financial position by replacing ignorance with high fines (which is how they proposed to get around the poor financial condition). Instead, taxpayers are left holding the bag if RM goes under and every bidder for the new contract will know that and bid accordingly

 

That moment when dinner is only one minute from being done and the radio goes off.......

 

i know that moment! happened to me last shift at lunch.

 

They were at 89.75 whatever instead of 90.00 %. I was pointing out that them being out of compliance was by a very slim marigin. In real numbers, with a call volume of 6600 calls... The difference between 89.75 and 90 is 16.5 calls.

I'm simply looking at the numbers here... SCC put some pretty insane stipulations into the contract, and r/m severely underbid and should never have agreed to the terms... Not to mention the Shirikawa drama that they were/are a part of...
I'm not defending r/m... They are a joke...

I shit you not... This was told to me by the crew in question, on the day it happened... About a week before I left... There was a BLS unit on a call... I was told it was a SNF... Two EMT's, neither of whom are FTO's, are on scene with a patient and one of the higher up r/m managers pulls up to the scene...

in a brand spanking new, Rural/Metro, officially painted BMW...

With a newly hired EMT in the passenger seat... Passes the new guy off to the unit and tells them they're training him for the rest of the day, and then leaves...

Did I mention the rural/metro branded BMW..?

Yet they still manage to somehow justify paying their EMT's one dollar over the city minimum wage of the two largest cities in the area of operation (San Jose and SF now have min. Wage of 10.50).. Still well below living wage in the Bay Area... And now they're saying they cant pay off their debts... Real surprise...

I heard someone put it bluntly... R/m is a for-profit company that is making huge profits by hiring young males who want to become firefighters at shit wages. The turnover rate is astounding...

 

Sorry for the rant... I'm still a little perturbed with their management after the way they handled my resignation.

 

I don't think we disagree. The numbers I quoted are the published numbers. But regardless, 12m; 90% of the time is a contracted number-so if you miss it, you miss it. That isn't their only issue otherwise, they wouldn't paying so much in fines

It would not surprise me to learn a lot of this is politically motivated by the Shirakawa question.

 

What could cause a blood vessel in an eye, to be swollen? Also have a red spot next to the colored part. Have not hit or injured it in any way. Was fine earlier.

 

Hypertension.
Red dot could be from a burst capillary that's causing a small amount of blood to pool in the sclera.

Do you take your BP on a regular basis? Is it high? Any headaches?