EMT and Ambulances in the US

That’s not a TLA…

…& mutha is only half a word!

Is too a Two Letter Acronym. :stuck_out_tongue:

I distinctly remember my driver’s education teacher advising use of the word ‘collision’ instead of (car) accident.

He also reminded us to have a better reason than, “I didn’t see you!” when exchanging information after a collision. Unless I did see you and it wasn’t an accident. So, stick with collision.

Good one, coach!

In my EMT Basic class (in a year that started with “1” - ouch), we were told similar. Accident implies cause and/or intent, call it a collision.

And when it’s a bad collision, you invite the state police accident reconstruction team. Got it. If nothing else, we aim for consistency.

We can’t use the word “victim” anymore because it has negative connotations & someone sued that they were disparaged in a press briefing :roll_eyes: :roll_eyes: :roll_eyes:

I did take EMT-B in about 2005-6? and held an Illinois license and National Registry but it’s now lapsed. Still, it was some of the best education I’ve ever got and I’m pleased to have been able to use ‘my powers’ as a bystander quite a few times over the years. Here’s me ‘responding’ to an incident a few weeks ago:

REC20250222-192914-9265.mp4 - Google Drive

I can’t believe it didn’t make the papers. The mellow vibes of Jimmy Buffett abruptly interrupted by my blood curdling scream, “Oh, No!” as I swerve out of control before running off onto the motorway.

I wonder if kids can call teachers coach.

Yeah.

But the SPART is a much cooler acronym than the SPCRT (pronounced spickert, spicert, space-suirt? Who knows?). :wink:

Massachusetts State Police now apparently call it the Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Section, or CARS. Sounds like a reverse engineered acronym if ever I heard one.

I much prefer the Collision Reconstruction Analysis Patrol.

I would have voted on State of Mass Accident Surveying & Handling - SMASH


Yes, I know they're a Commonwealth but that doesn't work as well

America is a plutocracy and our politicians are bought by the rich. But on top of that, we are too dysfunctional to fix anything in the US.

Even in deep blue states like California where democrats control the governorship and ~80% of the state senate and state legislature seats, they don’t pass laws to reform health care. Stuff like reforming how ambulances are paid for, or cutting out pharmacy benefits managers, negotiation of drug prices, fixing the in-network/out of network mess, etc.

We feel like we are stuck in a dysfunctional plutocracy and there is no way we can vote our way out.

In the last year of his life, after my Mum had passed and wasn’t there to pacify his health anxiety, my Dad (COPD sufferer) would demand an ambulance every 4 weeks (not an exaggeration), and the care home would always do what he asked because they weren’t medically qualified to tell him no. I couldn’t believe how relatively prompt the paramedics always were (given it was rarely an emergency) and how patient they were. They would also ask him if he wanted to go to hospital even if they didn’t think he needed to (he usually said yes).

How do people manage with old people like that when someone has to pay for the service?

Ironically, his final ambulance ride was called by the doctor rather than himself.

Around London, I’ve seen standard saloon cars, motorbikes and (in the narrow streets around Soho) pushbikes badged as NHS “ambulance” services to get a first responder out as quickly as possible, depending on what the dispatcher can judge to be the apparent immediate need.

And they’re all paid NHS employees rather than volunteers (at least for the vast majority of us - tiny Hebridean islands may have to do things differently). That said, I believe the various regional air ambulance services are technically independent charities.

AFIK the medical staff are NHS employees who divide their time between A&E and delivering care in the field, sometimes in quite challenging situations. The charity pays for the cost of the helicopter or car and some support staff (including the pilots)

When brother was clipped (on the head) by a car in rural Wales about 1970 we expected an ambulance (I think one of us had to find a phone booth). What turned up was an ancient black sedan car from the 1940s with running boards etc., driven by the guy who stoked the furnace at the cottage hospital. That’s how elementary it was in rural Wales back then.

At the cottage hospital they bandaged his head up and said, “Well, we could summon a proper ambulance, but it would have to come all the way from Aberystwyth. You’re better off driving him there yourself.” Which we did, with him vomiting at intervals along the way.