I was reading Medicmom's opinion on this article, and I felt a need to express my own thoughts.

This article makes EMS look bad. It sort of leads the reader to believe we are untrained morons out in the streets killing patients by inflating them like a balloon. That couldn't be farther from the truth. Patients in full arrest have almost zero chance of being revived regardless of care given. Something like 1 in 1,000 live to leave the hospital. For every minute a person is in arrest without Advanced Care and defibrillation, their survivability decreases by 10%. There was no mention of how long the patients had been down and what condition they were found in.

In the first seven patients observed, the paramedics gave about 37 breaths a minute, the study found. When the researchers retrained the emergency workers, the rate for the next six patients improved, going down to 22 breaths. Still, all the patients died."NY Times

Sorry, I have not been regularly updating, but I have been spending as much quality time as possible with my wife this week.

However, I should have known that things would go crazy when I only have a short time off. I have been running errands everyday trying to catch up on bills, get car maintenance done, get a haircut (Its been almost 2 months), pay taxes, and pay off some credit cards.

For some reason, all my e-mail addresses have disappeared! Trying to remake them results in:

All email sent to XXXXXXXXX will now be redirected to XXXXXXX
Fatal! Write Failure: /etc/valiases/seadoc.net. Ignore any messages of success this can only result in failure!

So weird! I have plenty of drivespace and my boxes aren't near full since they are all forwarders. Its occurring with any e-mail maintenace, POP3, forwarder, etc. It must have been down all day, so if anyone has tried to e-mail me, don't fret I am still here, but un-emailable. I noticed it bounced back a test message earlier, but I figured it was transient.

That's two major problems with my domain and host in the last week!

Update:
E-mail seems to be working again. I am trying to find out what was the specific reason that caused the error.

My host is a great host, but something has gone awry with my account in the last week or so. First time I have had any issues since moving to them over a year ago. I am hoping the problems are now ironed out. Time to make a backup.

I finally made it home about 23:30 last night. I sure was glad to be home. My wife and I stayed up till almost one.

Over the past month I have received a little over $3000 in bonuses and refunds. That has been awesome. I paid off three credit cards and threw some money at our apartment management to try an get them to fix some stuff. Anyway, when all was said and done, I still had quite a bit left.

I was supposed to be on the morning flight, but obviously I was not. I was bumped so some production people who work seven days at a time could go home. The dispatcher had assured me I was scheduled for this morning first thing. I guess he was wrong. The heliport gives no regard to the drilling contractors, we are lower than dirt in their eyes.

What a cruel April Fool's Joke. Let's just take away all the few days I have off.
Out of 8 possible days off after a month of work.
2 are lost to travel
2 are lost to schools
and a possible half of one lost by my needing sleep after driving all night tonight.

So I end up with 3.5 days off in seven weeks, of which I have way too much catching up to do!

This is an interesting and entertaining look at a day spent working EMS at Daytona International Speedway. It's written by the DIS Medical Director, but it still gives you a look behind the scenes of a niche in the EMS Profession. If you have a few minutes, give it a read. Especially if you are a racing fan.

In reality, the glamour is far less, and the professionalism far more, than anyone might think. Many of the EMTs and paramedics working at the Speedway have done so for a decade or more. They often know the drivers and track crew personally, and they feel a strong sense of ownership of the race. And although for many, this is a part-time job, it demands full-time alertness, dedication and training. But at least there's a panoramic view of the track through the windshield. As for me, without a regular seat in the rig for the lonely doctor, I spend most of the race (apart from the four seconds that you can actually see the leaders flash by the window of the van) sitting on the corrugated floor of the med unit, receiving an unusual posterior imprint as my souvenir of the day.

[...]

The red flag comes out, but we're still on station. Patti takes this opportunity and heads for the portable water closet. Adam reminds her to not look down. Apparently she did so once and was intestinally displeased by her findings. Adam, mindful of Patti's delicate constitution, says I shouldn't write this. Patti has another view. "If I can help another person," she says, "I'm willing to tell my story. Please, please tell people to Never Look Down." It's that kind of self-sacrifice that makes EMS a noble profession.JEMS.com

This is a great example of a technical rescue operation and how different agencies can work together to save one life. Had the scene commander not realized the need for more expertise, this could have turned out very differently. Instead the patient was riding his motorcycle the next day and back at work by that Friday.

It literally took a community of 85 rescuers from 28 organizations last week to save a single life. They were successful in pulling Jim Rolland, an Osage Co-op Elevator employee, free from a grain bin after being trapped up to his neck in soybeans.

[...]

Inside the bin the community was equally represented. Working to keep Rolland alive and simultaneously freeing him from the 70,000 bushels of soybeans was fellow employee Ryan Jensen; followed by Ken Parcher, director of Mitchell County Regional Health Center ambulance service; followed by Ed Kleinwort of the St. Ansgar Rescue squad; Josh Olson, an Osage fire fighter; and two unnamed Floyd County rescue volunteers, including Marty Parcher, Ken's brother.
Ken Parcher told reporters afterwards that he knew the Floyd County rescue unit had extensive experience in grain bin rescues and he told incident commander Gene Evans early in the process "to get them over here."

[...]

He [Rolland] was flown to Rochester, MN, for evaluation and was released later that day.
By next morning, the man who was rescued from a grain entrapment in which only two percent survive, mounted his motorcycle and visited his work place and some of his rescuers at the hospital
By Friday, a thankful Jim Rolland was back on the job.Mitchell County Press-News via EMSNetwork

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is asking for assistance in gathering information about unintentional deployments of automotive safety equipment.

This could be a very enlightening and important study. I am sure most firefighters, EMS professionals, and rescue crews have seen the Carbusters series of tapes used in rescue training. Remember the firefighter that was blown 10 feet from the vehicle when the air bag deployed unintentionally while he was over it? Maybe this study will help reduce those incidents.

Emergency services providers are requested to report all unintentional
deployments of automotive safety equipment, whether or not the rescuer
is injured, by one of the following methods:

1. By phone: (202) 366-2545 or (877) 201-3172
2. By e-mail: SCI@nhtsa.dot.gov
3. By facsimile: (202) 366-5374, Attention: SCI Program
4. By mail: U.S. DOT - NHTSA
Special Crash Investigation Program (NPO-122)
ATTN: Thomas Roston
400 Seventh St., SW, Room 6213
Washington, DC 20590
EMSNetwork

This has been one long extra week. I am glad to be going home tomorrow, if only for 8 days. Ick! 8 days off in seven weeks! You can bet I won't be working the trucks this time home.

Anyway, being out here the extra week, and being gone for the past month has sure been screwing with by biological clock, and messing up my continuity. Not to mention working 25 days straight without a break, adds a lot of stress. I bet my Cortisol levels are way up.

As you can probably tell by now, my focus and motivation have suffered. It's not that the week has been particularly hard, it's been no worse than normal. I just can't seem to stay focused on one subject for a long period of time. I also keep forgetting what day and week it is. My bio-clock is set to a 14 day and 14 day rhythm, and it keeps thinking this is still last week. Also, I am waking up much "stiffer" than normal, when I do sleep. I can't really explain this other than to say I am just drained from being gone so long.

I am so glad to be leaving tomorrow and getting myself back on track. I hope to be at home early enough (doubtful) to enjoy my evening, but most of all I'll just be glad to see my Wife and sleep in my own bed.

Note: It's also International Blog Comment Week, so say something will ya!

I don't know how long its been down, but the new Coppermine Gallery subdomain is not working (and therefore the Random Photo as well) . It was working as of 16:30 when I finished modifying the Random Photo code.

I submitted a trouble ticket and we shall see what the issue is.

Until then you can reach the gallery at www.seadoc.net/cpg.

I think Coppermine is working out very well. The templates are easier to work with, and its much more modular. Outside of the Random Block not ignoring Private Album permissions (I don't have any anyway), I haven't had any major issue.

UPDATE: It seems to be back up again. I wonder if a domain table was corrupted somewhere. Anyway, I am leaving the backup URL in place for a while longer until I am sure its back and stable.