From the AP:
A Baltimore City Fire Department paramedic who incorrectly determined a gunshot victim had died will be suspended without pay.
Fire Department spokesman Chief Kevin Cartwright said the individual will be suspended for 29 days without pay. The paramedic must also be retrained in some skills and demonstrate proficiency before returning to duty.
On Aug. 1, the fire department paramedic treating a burglary suspect police shot in the head said he was dead. But other authorities at the scene saw Michael Quarles moving 30 minutes later and asked paramedics to come back.
The department’s Quality Assurance Board investigated the paramedic’s actions and interviewed emergency workers at the scene before disciplining the paramedic.
Also on STATter911 …
- Baltimore union confirms two firefighters behind toilet based artwork of mayor & fire chief. Dispute within IAFF local over handling of the incident. – August 7, 2012
- Detroit mayor says TV reporter’s EMS blanket story is ‘blatantly false’. Charlie LeDuff stands by story that medic is punished for helping elderly man. – October 15, 2012
- DC Chief Kenneth Ellerbe defends plan to remove all ALS transport units from overnight hours. Says citizens better served moving medics to peak demand hours. – November 13, 2012
- Burning out of control: Detroit leaders fail to respond to a major fire. Commissioner Austin’s explanation is too little, too late to extinguish EMS blanket story engulfing the Internet. – October 17, 2012
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I wish there was more detail in this blog, like where the gunshot was precisely, what the paramedic had/hadn’t done to determine death and if the victim had regained consciousness or how s/he was moving.
Interesting though. Was the victim is such a critical state that the pulse and respirations were too low to detect easily? How much blood had been lost?
WOW!! Incompitance was not covered up or rewarded this time. Maybe there’s hope for our profession after all……
Here is one of the orignal stories that we linked to, if that helps- http://wjz.com/local/dead.life.shooting.2.1112583.html
Statter
Absent some sort of malice on the part of the paramedic, it seems counter productive to discipline him for a medical error. If a doctor makes a mistake in medical care, does he lose a month’s salary? Generally, I’d say not. Rather, the case is examined in rounds, the mistakes are dissected, corrective lessons are issued, and remediation occurs. One more example of how paramedicine is not treated as a profession, but a trade. Or maybe a skill set within a trade.
Xina and Ronnie, I agree with both of you. Whenever we “call” someone in the field, my license quivers a little bit. Not that I am affraid of making the call, it`s just those “unknowns”.
We always do a 4 lead unless obvious signs of death are present.
We worked an arrest last fall. Guy coded while driving his car. A truck driver and Trooper stopped and initiated CPR within a minute. We were on scene in 3 minutes. He was in coarse V fib. We worked him while he was packaged up. Fried him 6 times and ran our protocol of drugs until we emptied our drug box. He was in fine V fib as we started transport. At the ER, he was now in asystole and the doc “called” him. 10 minutes later while we were discussing the call with the doc and ER staff, his pulse returned. The patient arrested and had spontanious return of circulation 3 times in the next 4 days. His 4th arrest, he didn`t “come back”. Even docotrs can make “mistakes”…..Like Ronnie eludes to, we just need to be professional enought to cover all bases.
Nice work baltimore
do not judge, you were not there, paragods
Ralph. Why would you need to put a 4 lead on a Pt that you would consider “calling”? This is becomming a trend in our field that I really do not like. Putting a Pt on a 4 lead to me means that you are unsure of what you should do. 4 lead on a code means you need to work the Pt. The obvious signs of rigor, lividity, decapatation, thorax transection, incineration, shoul be your points of interest. If none of those are present we should be working the Pt. Maybe this is why you feel nervous. I know some areas of the country are different but for me to call someone in the field one of these OBVIOUS signs of death needs to be present.
That is NOT NOT NOT the way to handle a patient care issue. When you mix suspensions and fines into patient care issues you arebegging for providers to start hiding their mistakes!!! This should have been handled by the QA officeand Medical Director with remediation or other constuctive action!!
Btw if you think this punishment is not strict enough, keep in mind that in the BCFD 29 days is 29 WORKING days which equals to about 3 months of suspnsion without pay,
29 working days is 58 calander days. 2 months. Baltimore works 2 days, 2 nights and 4 off. Declaring a death is serious stuff. A feel for a pulse is not good enough. Pulses can be week and thready. I agree with the earlier posts about the 4 lead. I also blame this to a system that requires FF”s to become paramedics. Thats right, All FF’s must become PM’s. There are some great FF’s that just cant do ALS. Baltimore makes ALL entry level FF’s become PM’s so that they have enough PM’s to ride the gut bucket and it keeps the seasoned FF’s off of the medic. We also have to hire substandard people to meet quotas to keep the politician’s happy. So there is your recipe for disaster. Hiring unqualified people and making them become medics when they should have never been allowed to enter the fire service in the first place. If anyone wants to see how NOT to run a FD, just look at Baltimore. Our once proud dept. has become an example of what NOT to do.