Say 911 responds to a call from an 8 yr old that Mommy is unconscious and when the crew gets there finds the 8 yr old and 2 younger siblings.
If the adult has to be transported immediately what happens to the children? Would they ever be taken along?
It would depend on the situation, but most commonly, the medics would notify the police, who would pick them up, then the police would notify CPS. If the child calling 911, knows phone #s for other relatives, that would be CPS’s first pursuit, otherwise they’d go to an intake center, then to either a conty facility housing children, or to a foster family who make their home available for temporary, emergency, placement.
The children would never go along with the medics. The space is very limited, and they can’t divide their attention to keep the kids safe while caring for the parent.
Don’t police show up to 911 calls anyway?
Not always. In the system I work in, the police go on ODs/drunks, assaults, accidents, suicide attempts, deaths, and combative patients. Of course they also come if we ask for them.
As far as the scenario in the OP goes, I’d leave the children in the custody of the police or the fire department. Police or fire would typically will remain at the scene with the children and attempt to contact relatives or another responsible party.
For other situations involving kids with a sick parent, it depends. If the parent has decision-making capacity and requests the child stays on scene, I’d probably be ok with that. I have, on occasion, transported a child in the front seat. However, our limit is one rider. Also, I wont’ take riders if we’re doing an emergent return to the hospital. Hope this helps.
St. Urho
Paramedic
I was asked if I wanted to go.
I was at a retreat with other boys my age (6ish). (a now-politically incorrectly named group called Indian Guides) They called an ambulance out to pick up my father who’d had a seizure. It was serious. I was asked if I wanted to go with him in the ambulance back to the hospital (far away) or stay and finish the retreat. Not sure if that was different because of the distance to the destination.
A few years ago, a friend of mine had a medical emergency while she was traveling through Memphis with her twelve-year-old daughter. There were no relatives in Memphis, so the police took the daughter to the youth detention center, where the poor kid spent the night locked up with adolescent hookers, teen drug dealers, burglars, car thieves, and other scary young persons. What an eye-opener for a 12-year-old “good girl.”
I hope this is not a typical case, but somehow I suspect that it might be.