History Can Better Prepare us for the Future
It seems stories are written about events occurring around the globe like it's the first time such a thing has happened. Unless multiple like-events happen over a short period of [...]
Anecdotal is Sometimes All You Got
This call required a real team effort to achieve the outcome, a Rescue 9-1-1 show segment. It may have been the outcome but it was the farthest thing from my [...]
Didn’t See That Coming
Most organizations that handle 9-1-1 EMS calls have their "frequent flyers". In some cases these are people who have chronic conditions which are either fragile or self-exacerbated by not following [...]
Hurricanes – Time to Review The Challenges
It's been awhile since we have had a hurricane season that actually produced hurricanes. I have pulled up a few posts from previous years that may have some value for [...]
Staging Normally Sucks
In the later stages of my career I was volunteer as a paramedic/fire-fighter on a combination paid/volunteer fire department. We also did first response medical. Personally towards the end of [...]
You Can’t Save the World
I suppose all members of the medical field go in with some aspiration of "saving lives" during the course of their work. At some point we come to the realization [...]
Organizational Couch Potatoes – A False Sense of Preparedness
I was rummaging through some old files the other day and I came across my copy of the After Action Report (AAR) for Quakex97. This was a joint local, state [...]
What’s Preparedness Worth? Is $3.5 Million Enough?
My experience has always been that preparedness is a tough sell. The value seems to go up after there has been an event and a bad outcome was a result. [...]
Medical Rapid Response Team – Ideal for Catastrophic Events
I've been involved in planning for a Cascadia earthquake/tsunami event and a New Madrid earthquake event so I know what a catastrophe will look like. I have not been involved [...]
New Threats or Déjà Vu?
I expect there are a few gray around the edge readers like myself who are starting to wonder why people are looking at ISIL threats as something new. This is [...]