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 […]

The official death numbers for 2018 are out from the Connecticut Medical Examiner’s office. Connecticut Accidental Drug Intoxication Deaths 1017 people died in Connecticut of accidental overdoses, down 21 from 2017.  This is the first decline (albeit minor) after six years of escalation. 746 people died in Connecticut due to the presence of Fentanyl, up […]