1ºJill Sawyer depending on the front steps and the angles of doorways and basically the house itself, sometimes the stretcher can’t fit correctly. When you take a stretcher up more than 4 to 5 steps, it basically becomes a slide and the patient can fall off it, even when strapped. If a patient throws their body weight, it will tip over and their is absolutely no way to stop the tip over. Steps are a HUGE problem, even when it’s just a small amount. The wheels become uneven when they are on different steps, it’s very dangerous. Usually an ambulance has a stair chair, but even with that the patient has to be able to hold themselves in an upright position while being strapped in, and not reach out and grab walls, door frames, etc. In this specific situation, he should have been rolled onto a tarp w/handles and carried out by a team of people. These tarps have different names: people mover, dolphin tarp, extrication sling, etc. not all services have them and they are expensive. They are also not on a mandatory inventory list for ambulances and services don’t always want to pay for them.
2ºI live in this area and this woman visited our home. A few months ago my daughter had a medical emergency. We attempted to take her to the ER ourselves but she couldn’t move her limbs. We’d never seen anything like it, panicked and called 911. This woman and another male emt are who came to our home. The man was fine…quiet but attentive. The woman basically stood in our entryway and seemed completely annoyed to be at our house. We explained what happened prior, that we weren’t sure what to do and if we needed to go to the ER. She shrugged at us…didn’t even go up to our daughter who was on our couch partially paralyzed and incapable of moving her limbs.
For context, Our daughter had a panic attack and hyperventilated shortly before. In the middle of the episode, she went completely paralyzed from the neck down. We couldn’t lift her and she was terrified. We’d never seen this response to a panic attack and were concerned. This woman stood in our living room and just looked at our crying daughter, never approached her, said …”yeah…that’s a panic attack”. I asked if paralysis was normal and she said “everyone is different”, coldly. I started to get upset and cry a bit because I wanted someone to tell me what to do. I asked what we needed to do…”is this something she should go to the ER for? How long does paralysis last? You haven’t even touched her or approached her and seem so annoyed to be in my home tonight.”
She walked over and said “ I can take her vitals and if you want us to take her in we will.”, with an annoyed look.
She wasn’t even going to touch my child. From the moment she walked in my house I felt something was off and it was just like the video from the police body cam. The difference was we were there to advocate for our teenage daughter and she couldn’t get away with telling her “she wasn’t dealing with her bs” that night.
I have the utmost respect for LEOs, EMTs and healthcare workers. I actually felt a little bad the next day like maybe I had overreacted in my terror and she wasn’t as terrible as I remember. After watching the body cam video I know I was absolutely justified and she was in fact, out of line.
While I’m sad that this will probably ruin her life and I don’t wish that for anyone, I do think that she was in the wrong line of work and obviously didn’t posses the empathy and kindness required to serve in that position. My child is ok…but someone’s child is dead. It’s an awful situation.
3ºApril Olson Difficult to know what they were told walking into the situation. Did the police tell them he was in alcohol withdrawal? No one, including the police, needed to try to drag him to the ambulance. How are the police not accountable for any of this? This man was clearly not threatening in any way. If he can’t walk, why not bring the gurney to him and place him the right way? Why does everyone continue to try to get him to walk?
Many systems failed this man, and it wasn’t just the ambulance personnel. The police have a part too.
4ºIt makes you seriously wonder how they've handled other incapacitated combative patients on their own in the past because even if you remove withdrawals and the stigma surrounding it, there's medical emergencies that make patients unaware and combative. Would they have done the same to someone that let's say had a stroke with similar symptoms or dementia etc diabetics can go into crisis and not be aware.
I've not watched the video nor will I. I'm glad in spite of the tragic outcome this one was on camera to prove fault. That said when police aren't involved, what else have these two and their company, as well as responding officers done that strays so far from policy and training that has caused harm or potentially lead to fatalities after the fact . There should be a review of every patient they've ever treated.
5ºShe looks like she is furious she got caught. The police and the paramedics failed at their jobs because they are probably tired and fed up with helping people when people need help. There comes a point in your job where you just aren’t cut out for it and they killed this man that was in medical distress. They didn’t even believe him as he was in grave condition with all sorts of symptoms known to the responders. They scolded him instead and punished him by tightening those straps like telling him here, you deserve to be tied up. I’ve seen this indifference first hand but here they killed the man vía asphyxiation.
6ºValerie Sagle I am so sorry; it’s terrifying to have something like that happen and the people who are trained to help act pissed off. Last spring I had to call an ambulance for my 18-month old nephew. He had a terrible rash on his groin to the point the skin was peeling, he was screaming in pain; neither my sister nor I could console him or do anything. We had two other children here and she didn’t have a license, so we had to call the ambulance to take him. The “paramedic” who showed up was horrible. Walked as slow as he could to get in my house, didn’t wear a mask (and we all had been exposed to Covid), asked why I didn’t take him in my own car because I clearly had one in the driveway. I was disgusted. I have never called an ambulance before and now I’m afraid to call one ever again after how horrible he made my sister and I feel. I called his supervisor and spoke to him and he told me it wasn’t the first complaint he has had. So terrible.
7ºLisa Millender-Bowie she is! Thank you! We opted to take her to the ER by ambulance because she couldn’t walk. The ER doctors at Memorial Medical Center were amazing. They said when we hyperventilate that badly we usually pass out. This is our body’s way of “rebooting” they described. My daughter for some reason didn’t pass out and they speculated that this was a response to that. So her body went into panic mode and shut down some functions. They said they expected it would slowly wear off and it did. After about 30 min she could wiggle her fingers and gave a thumbs up which finally brought some sense of relief. After a couple hours she was able to walk with assistance to the bathroom. They were amazing to us…the multiple doctors and nurses that helped could tell we were scared and that my daughter was afraid she would be permanently paralyzed. They comforted her…and us. They told us coming in was the right thing to do and while this was a scary response, she would fully recover and she did.
8ºJill Sawyer what video? I read the article, but I didn't see a video. I'd like to watch it before responding, but shame on them! I googled the story and found the video on YouTube. That woman paramedic was a B*TCH and completely unnecessary. I hope she gets life for taking his life. If anyone knows anything about treating a person with withdrawals, they would have had compassion for this man. They should have compassion with EACH and EVERY patient. The cop with the knit hat ~~ he was great! At least he treated Earl as a person, with compassion.
9ºI didn't see your comment before I commented above. And I'm so very sorry and angry for your experience.
It confirmed my suspicion and answers a question of mine. These two, their company and possibly the responding officers all need to be reviewed. I suspect that while this time it was caught on camera, who's to say that others that were harmed during treatment and transport were not? Any death after the fact can often be chalked up to treatment during the course of crisis (cpr breaks ribs for example but without the information of other treatment of the patient) but have they really looked at them and made sure their failures to follow training and policies didn't ultimately cause deaths and/or serious injuries that were directly caused by them.
It's scary. There's so many situations I can think of where patients would be unaware and even combative did they treat them all like this
10ºDiane Plewe Blodgett I did not. To be honest, I initially felt like “that mom” . I told myself that they are the professionals and know what they are doing. So I made myself feel like I would be complaining about someone who puts their welfare and safety on the line for the public. Honestly, there are some people who will read my post and accuse me of being hysterical or unappreciative of the sacrifice EMT’s make. My daughter was ok and we focused on helping her process what happened and how to deal with it should it happen again.
I figured it best to let it go.