Back from a hiatus

Sorry to everyone for not having anything in the past couple of days, but it has been a busy couple of days. There was a lot of working and a lot of moving to do. But now I'm back, with a fresh sense of spirit. Something I observed over the last few days of working is how much my hands are really tied sometimes. For example, during one of my shifts my medic and I were dispatched for a diabetic. We arrived to find the patient unresponsive on his couch. The patient did respond to any sort of stimuli, that is until we tried to start an IV, then all hell broke loose. We were able to obtain a sugar reading of 45 before we tried the IV, but the IV was a no-go. The patient obviously didn't realize what he was doing, but I was unable to control all 4 limbs, so we called for police assistance. When they got there, the patient took one swing at the cop and the next thing we knew the patient was on the floor with the cop on top of his chest and a knee across the neck.

I found myself wondering exactly how this officer would go back to the station and document this use of force. The topic of restraint in EMS is a very grey area. Even when we use "the minimum necessary" only in a case of self-defense, we can still get into trouble. This is why we called the police in the first place. I'm not saying I would have immediately jumped on top of this guy, but in the end, it was what was necessary to get an IV in place and get this patient the dextrose he needed. After he came around he could not stop apologizing, and felt terrrible, and I don't hold it against him. But I wonder just how much paperwork that officer had to do afterwards...

Serve On,
The Public "Servant"