The rural official is so identified with the sources of funding that I am now cut off from that local official due to my attitude toward this funding source.
I just sent this to my legislative representative:
Representative Sieck,
The law prohibits an ambulance driver from departing for an EMS call without an EMS provider on board.
In a sparsely populated rural setting where the EMS provider is with the patient in a different town than the driver sitting in the ambulance, in order to lawfully transport the patient via ambulance, the EMS provider would need to drive to a different town to accompany the driver back to the patient.
This almost occurred the day before yesterday when I, a driver, responded here in Riverton to a call involving a potential cardiac event in Hamburg. For whatever reason, the dispatcher thought there would be no EMS provider to accompany me but thought there would be an EMS provider in Hamburg.
Fortunately, no one was killed by the law in this situation, but to indicate just how ridiculous this law is for a place like Riverton:
If someone calls 911 here in Riverton, I can be sitting in the ambulance and just blocks away an EMS provider who may be saving the life of the patient. Should he not have driven straight from his house to the patient, instructing me to meet him there with the ambulance?
Sincerely,
James Bowery
PS: This law, like so many other laws, is tailored for urban areas. Depopulation of rural areas results. However, far more insidious, is that when young families move to urban areas, they are less likely to have children. It seems our institutions advertising themselves as protecting the people, urban as well as rural, aren’t serious about anything but providing jobs for people claiming the status of protectors of rural populations.
Interesting! In my rural state, the regulation is explicit, there in black & white. In an emergency, EMTs are authorized to drag anyone off the street to drive the ambulance. Seems reasonable – in an emergency, the focus should be on doing everything possible to save a life.
Of course, this is not popular with unionized full-time EMT employees, who insist on a crew of 2 in the ambulance.
For all I know that’s authorized here as well if the situation you posit is taken literally in that the EMS ambulance and potential driver are co located.
There may also be situations where someone in some sort of chain of command could provide authorization for a driver to depart alone with an ambulance. But where people are all volunteers frequently the chain of command involves people who are not available.
As regards unionized fire and rescue folks well guess where unions are most effective? If your rural state is that much of a rural state the evolution of civilization may not have progressed to the point that it’s killing we heathens as often.
I’m willing to suspend this judgement based on the fact that the website wasn’t updated to include the news release regarding an intended change of direction for the foundation. My skepticism remains given that the kind of process being pursued is going to be dominated by “community leaders” that have, in my experience, been less than comprehending of the source of the rot, despite my efforts to bring it to their attention over the last 15 years.
Last night a meeting was held in my former town of residence, and I’ll be watching closely to see how much insight these meetings bring to the table.
People are thinking they’ll be able to attract people to “work remote” while having spent 15 years ignoring my overtures to communities leaders regarding what it takes to attract people trying to escape the Hell Hole that has become of the Bay Area.
Certainly they aren’t going to be funding anything like this:
