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RICHLAND COUNTY EMS CHIEF UNDER FIRE FOR FLAWED POLICY
A controversial policy put in place by the head of the Richland County Emergency Management Service could be costing lives, and Midlands leaders are finally calling for a change.
Columbia Fire Chief Bradley Anderson and department Chaplain Michael Bingham have asked EMS director Mike Byrd revoke the policy, which says firefighters cannot drive ambulances and must wait for a replacement EMT to arrive before they can transport a victim to the emergency room.
Those precious minutes, critics charge, could mean the difference between life and death.
“We’re willing to meet any requirements needed to allow designated personnel to drive ambulances if Richland County wants us to do that,” Anderson told WIS.
Recent emails to The Palmetto Scoop have echoed similar pleas from firefighters and first responders across the county.
“If firefighters were able to drive the ems unit, lives could be saved,” one person wrote. “Firefighters in other departments all over this state and the nation have seamless operations with other ems agencies. In Richland County the problem is one person, Michael Byrd.”
In one scenario, a tipster said, a 3-year-old child is in cardiac arrest two miles from the ER. A fire unit arrives and begins performing CPR on the child. The RCEMS unit then arrives to begin advanced care but has to wait several minutes for another unit to get there before they can transport the child to the ER.
That description is eerily similar to what may have caused the death of 3-year-old Jaden Myers-Pugh, who died September 17 of swine flu complicated by sickle cell anemia.
Further emphasizing the policy’s futility, TPS was told that firefighters attend a 40 hour training course to drive large fire apparatus. RCEMS, on the other hand, has only a four hour training course.
The point being missed is that EMS today is not a taxi service with a stretcher. If time to the hospital was the only consideration why didn’t the fire department just transport the patient to the hospital rather than waiting on EMS? Even if both EMS units had arrived simultaneously, establishing an airway, providing CPR/ventilation, and sometimes administering medications all take priority over transport and these potentially life saving therapies are delayed if transport occurs too soon. Sadly survival from out of hospital cardiac arrest is very low worldwide and bringing care to the patient is an attempt to improve this. We should not go back to the scoop and run methods of the 1960’s.
Well, EMT isn’t supposed to mean extra man on truck and the “golden hour” emergency medicine has revolved about is not solid as precious seconds DO COUNT.
It may be a rhetorcal question, is RCEMS indemnified against wrongful death suits caused by this policy? I smell the drool of hungry trial lawyers festering in slippery pools on the pavement and a dwindling reinsurance pool that is prone to settle, regardless of guilt mitigating this quagmire.