We are called for an unconscious and find the man out cold on his feet near Pope Park.  He is a tall man in his early thirties with a ghost white complexion, standing there on the side of the road, his head nodded forward, arms hanging down swaying.  Another drug user on the nod in […]

I attend the Department of Public Health’s 2019 Connecticut Opioid & Prescription Drug Overdose Prevention Conference on May 2.  The featured speaker is Austin Eubanks, a survivor of the Columbine shooting. He and his best friend were golfing and fishing buddies. He shows us pictures of the two of them smiling, no idea what fates […]

In Hartford, EMS personnel call the Connecticut Poison Control Center (CPCC) after each opioid overdose they encounter, and answer a series of questions. The specialists (CPCC) log the data and also input in into federal OD map software which produces a near real time map reporting overdose locations and types, and can automatically send spike […]

The Consensus on Science with Treatment Recommendations (CoSTR) from the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR), the group that forms the basis for the AHA ACLS guidelines, has released a new draft guideline on Advanced Airway Management During Adult Cardiac Arrest.  The guideline is available for public comment until April 2, 2019. Advanced Airway Management […]

Check out this powerful You-tube video When I see another provider who is burned out, my reaction has always been: “Get another job.  You have no business doing this kind of work.” Until I saw this video, I never really considered the concept of moral injury. If a fellow paramedic hurts his back lifting or […]

I’m on scene of an overdose. A fifty year old man in an unkempt apartment went unresponsive after sniffing two bags of heroin. His neighbor found him, giving him 4 mgs of Naloxone IN, and then called us. The man is alert and oriented by our arrival and does not wish to go to the […]

Connecticut, following the leads of states such as New York, has just expanded the scope of practice for EMTs to include injecting medications. This means instead of carrying two $600 Epi-pens, EMTs can now draw up 0.3 mg of epi from a $5 vial and administer it to a patient suffering a severe allergic or […]

It has been busy at work lately and the crews have been getting pounded.  An EMT posted this video (found on the internet) on our employee Facebook page.  I laugh every time I think of it.  If you have never worked commercial EMS in a high volume system, you might not appreciate it.  I can […]