What does an EMT or Paramedic carry in their personal first aid bag? - The one you have in the trunk of your car?
I don’t carry a first aid kit in my car. I do have a few band aids, though.
St. Urho
Paramedic
Why not? That is, if you don’t mind me asking.
Well there are Good Samaritan laws that provide some protection for helping people in danger when you’re off shift, but you have to remember that a paramedic is not licensed, only certified. A paramedic on an ambulance is working under the medical direction of a physician. If I start an IV on someone off shift then I am technically practicing medicine without a license, and can get in plenty of trouble for it.
But I’m sure plenty of EMTs and Medics might keep something like a CPR mask with them.
I’m any army medic so my rules are a little different, basically I am always allowed to work on other military personnel to the best of my ability. Given that I carry an aid bag in my car with bandages, tourniquets, IVs, splits, and a mouth-to-mouth mask. I would not do anything beyond CPR and stopping life threatening bleeding if I was treating a civilian though.
Not much for around town- A couple airway adjuncts, BVM, gloves, bulky dressings, sam splint and a cervical collar.
If I’m going somewhere where I might be a long ways from definitive medical care I might throw some more stuff in there, such as some crystalloid/iv kits, stethoscope, a small crich kit and some needles to decompress a chest, but I would be very careful in how and on who I used things like that. Depending on the area I might bring some epi vials as well.
Like someone else said, you can get in some legal hot water for working on patients without any medical supervision, so I would have to feel fairly certain that whoever I was trying to treat on the roadside was in danger of imminent death and that my actions might actually prevent that before I do something more advanced than hold pressure and assist ventilations.
No bag in the car for me, either. Same reasons as the others gave - liability.
I’m an EMT, and like **KCB615 **and St. Urho said, I don’t carry a fully-stocked med bag or first aid kit with me for the liability reasons.
I do have a small bag with band-aids, a few 4x4s, tape, an ice pack, a couple of cravats, and two small splints. It’s mainly for taking to my son’s sports events, in case someone gets hurt.
It’s a combination of a few things. Number 1 is that a lot of this stuff you can’t just go out and buy. Sure you can get splints and bandages and stuff, but IVs, IV solution, medications, etc essentially need a prescription and I’m sure my employer would frown on me stealing things from them for my own first aid kit.
Second, I just don’t see my self using much of anything that often. I could improvise a larger bandage or splint if it became necessary. Lay-rescuer CPR doesn’t actually teach rescue breathing anymore, so I don’t carry a mask. I can do compression only CPR just fine, and it’ll be just as effective, if not more.
Third is liability. Although in Colorado, I’m covered by my existing medical director anywhere in the state it’s still a bit of a gray area to be doing advanced skills outside of work. Also, I don’t carry liability insurance of my own, although I am covered at work.
I do actually use a personal kit when I’m working on the ambulance, though. I don’t care for the standard kits we use, and we’re allowed to stock out own kits with the services supplies. I have a Statpacks Golden Hour pack. It’s nice.
Not a certified EMT or paramedic but I’ve had roughly the equivalent training of EMT-B/EMT-1. In my car I carry only a basic first aid and barrier kit (bandages, burn pack, vinyl gloves and CPR mask). On backcountry hikes I’ll carry some trauma gear and a suture kit as well, but that’s mostly for my own benefit (plus I tend to hike with former or current EMTs); I don’t intend on trying to reduce a fracture, amputate a limb, or stitch up a wound unless the alternative is likely death. My basic plan in a major backcountry injury would be to send the fastest member of the party to the nearest ranger station and call for airlift extraction while stabilizing the injured person.
Stranger
By whose criteria? According to their websiteAmerican Heart Association still goes by a 30:2 ratio for lay people and healthcare providers. The wikipedia article says that AHA did admit that the compression-only method does work as good as or sometimes better than ILCOR (30:2) method, but the citation was a dead link.
I just tested for ACLS a few weeks ago and we still go by 30:2. Do you think compressions alone are more effective?
The compressions are far and away the most important part of CPR. As far as rescue breathing, my last ACLS class was where I was told it was eliminated. I’ll try to find a link when I’m not posting on my BlackBerry.