daftandbarmy
Army.ca Fossil
- Reaction score
- 43,572
- Points
- 1,160
Fourth Emergency Service
- Thread starter mariomike
- Start date
When I was working as a medic for AHS, we had fights in the back of ambulances all the time
4.18 per 1000 calls sounds like a massive underreporting problem.
4.18 per 100 calls I would say seems exceptionally low - unless patients in Toronto are just exceptionally better behaved than patients in Edmonton...
- Reaction score
- 2,095
- Points
- 1,260
Probably not. May depend on where one was stationed.
I had the good fortune to be stationed in Chinatown.
I liked it there. Noisy, crowded streets with open front shops full of everything. Hanging red and gold signs I couldn't read, conversations I could not understand, and the unfamiliar music.
Just a streetcar ride from home, but it felt like far, far away.
Sounds like a good posting
In Edmonton we were all over the city.
In theory, the city was broken down into districts. And each district was broken down into zones. And in theory, we were supposed to stay within our assigned zone.
In reality, our dispatch system (CADS) had us all over the bloody city. It was supposed to factor in the number of calls each unit had done in that shift, to spread the work out somewhat evenly when possible - but it rarely was the case
It wasn't unusual at all for crews working out of a station in the SW to be responding to calls in the NE, and vice versa, just based on who was available at the time.
And if you drift too close to downtown, you end up stuck there due to call volume & CADS just assigning whoever is closest.
...
Your Chinatown sounds leaps & bounds better than ours.
Ours is the most dangerous part of the city - not because of the Chinese, but because Chinatown happens to be right next door to our homeless shelters.
I don't think our Chinatown is anything like your Chinatown even on a good summer day.
(All 4 of our shelters are kitty corner to each other. It more or less isolates most of the homeless people to that part of town, but calls for service are damn near constant)
- Reaction score
- 2,095
- Points
- 1,260
Sounds like a good posting
In Edmonton we were all over the city.
In theory, the city was broken down into districts. And each district was broken down into zones. And in theory, we were supposed to stay within our assigned zone.
In reality, our dispatch system (CADS) had us all over the bloody city. It was supposed to factor in the number of calls each unit had done in that shift, to spread the work out somewhat evenly when possible - but it rarely was the case
It wasn't unusual at all for crews working out of a station in the SW to be responding to calls in the NE, and vice versa, just based on who was available at the time.
And if you drift too close to downtown, you end up stuck there due to call volume & CADS just assigning whoever is closest.
...
Your Chinatown sounds leaps & bounds better than ours.
Ours is the most dangerous part of the city - not because of the Chinese, but because Chinatown happens to be right next door to our homeless shelters.
I don't think our Chinatown is anything like your Chinatown even on a good summer day.
(All 4 of our shelters are kitty corner to each other. It more or less isolates most of the homeless people to that part of town, but calls for service are damn near constant)
Our station only had one car. When you cleared the hospital, you returned to station.
Now, there is East Chinatown, as well as Scarborough and North York.
The absolute best station, if you enjoy peace and quiet, is Toronto Islands.
Our policy was return to station to restock & clean the unit, but the ambulance bays at the hospitals ended up being where we would do that for the most part
Restock any meds & IV lines used. Clean the unit. (Usually one medic would do that while the other medic had to stay with the patient until admitted, which wasn't always immediately)
By the time the medic came back out, the other medic would have the unit tidied up, wiped down, and restocked. And we would usually just bring ourselves back online with dispatch, and head to the next call.
It wasn't uncommon to only return to station at end of shift.
...
We called our ambulances busses or trucks, or units. Unit tended to be the term used if specifying between a BLS unit & ALS unit. I think calling them cars might be an Ontario thing?
We also used the term CFS - call for service - quite frequently. But I've gathered that seems to be an Edmonton thing, because even in Calgary medics would give us funny looks when we said it.
(I didn't even know Toronto had islands...holy goodness gracious I need to travel more lol
Been to Afghanistan. Been to Africa. Can't say I've been to Toronto minus driving thru it on the 401...)
- Reaction score
- 2,095
- Points
- 1,260
ur policy was return to station to restock & clean the unit, but the ambulance bays at the hospitals ended up being where we would do that for the most part
Restock any meds & IV lines used. Clean the unit. (Usually one medic would do that while the other medic had to stay with the patient until admitted, which wasn't always immediately)
By the time the medic came back out, the other medic would have the unit tidied up, wiped down, and restocked. And we would usually just bring ourselves back online with dispatch, and head to the next call.
It wasn't uncommon to only return to station at end of shift.
...
We called our ambulances busses or trucks, or units. Unit tended to be the term used if specifying between a BLS unit & ALS unit. I think calling them cars might be an Ontario thing?
We also used the term CFS - call for service - quite frequently. But I've gathered that seems to be an Edmonton thing, because even in Calgary medics would give us funny looks when we said it.
(I didn't even know Toronto had islands...holy goodness gracious I need to travel more lol
When we cleared the hospital, we returned to station.
Nothing ever really changed. Same schedule. Same station. Same partner.
The ambulance fleet was Cadillac ( pictured ), so we called them cars.
Later, we operated Crown Victoria cars. ( pictured. )
Even after the Caddies switched to "coffee wagons", ( pictured ) everyone called them cars. As in, "What's the Car Count?"
When I transferred to ESU Division, we operated 40' buses.
The Islands station uses a six-wheeler. ( pictured).
- Reaction score
- 6,202
- Points
- 1,160
The way wait times are at some hospitals now, the partner could probably do an engine rebuild.
I notice a lot of Ontario coppers are calling ambulances 'buses' - probably picked up from US TV shows. Plain language radio protocol is a good thing but it can't start sounding like social media chat.
- Reaction score
- 2,095
- Points
- 1,260
NYC calls them buses.
I only heard them referred to as cars. It was always the Car Count.
- Reaction score
- 6,202
- Points
- 1,160
That's what I meant. 'NYPD Blue', et al.
- Reaction score
- 2,095
- Points
- 1,260
TCCS is welcome to the mental health calls. They are the specialists.
I have so many questions... Eyes going wide and jaw hanging open in amazement...
You guys actually had Ghostbuster cars!!?? As ambulances!?? Holy shit that's cool!!
Like DAMN COOL. I still can't believe my eyes right now
And then wait...your paramedics also drove crown vics!?? They must've had emergency lighting on them & a siren?? Still red & white??
I've only ever heard them called trucks or units. Never cars.
Edmonton ran a pilot project a few years ago that had an EMT or higher set up shop in emergency rooms across the city.
If a patient couldn't be admitted right away, ambulance crews could leave up to 6 patients per emergency room medic. It helped get crews back on the road while offering the same level of triage care as if they had stayed.
Not sure if that's still the case. EMS is being rolled under a brand new government agency as part of AHS's dismantling, so heck if I know what's happening in that space right now.
That's not what the Sentinel program is intended for. Sentinels are meant to be people others approach who can direct them to the right supports.
- Reaction score
- 3,883
- Points
- 1,160
I have so many questions... Eyes going wide and jaw hanging open in amazement...
You guys actually had Ghostbuster cars!!?? As ambulances!?? Holy shit that's cool!!
Like DAMN COOL. I still can't believe my eyes right now
And then wait...your paramedics also drove crown vics!?? They must've had emergency lighting on them & a siren?? Still red & white??
I've only ever heard them called trucks or units. Never cars.
If you go back to a similar era the company (Smith's Ambulance) that Edmonton used for its municipal service till 1978 also had low-riders.
Photos from EMSClassics.com - Images For Sale
They were still around during the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, however the ambulance coverage for the Games was provided by 1 Field Ambulance from Calgary.
