In October of 2023, there were curious headlines out of Mexico that the Sinaola Cartel was getting out of the fentanyl business. Mexican Sinaloa Cartel’s Message to Members: Stop Making Fentanyl or Die blared the headline in the Wall Street Journal expose. According to the report, this written warning appeared throughout Sinaloa: “In Sinaloa, the…
Why are overdoses fatalities dropping? There has been much speculation and the answer probably doesn’t lie with one factor but with many, including increased availability of naloxone, the efforts of harm reduction workers, the end of the COVID isolation, the trend away from injecting to snorting or smoking, a less toxic drug supply, and expanded…
I was giving a data presentation to the statewide Harm Reduction Advocacy Group and after reviewing the EMS data I had, I touched on the latest CDC numbers that show a 24.1% decrease in overdoses in Connecticut since November 2021 based on rolling 12-month averages with the latest 12-month period ending June 2024. After the…
There have been a lot of changes in EMS over the years that I have chronicled. New meds, new equipment, new procedures, new trends, etc. One distinct change is the patient or their family’s level of suspicion over giving out their information. Name, date of birth and social security number. We try to get this…
The latest CDC data released today show US overdose deaths are down 16.74% from the reported rolling 12-month high of 111,802 in August of 2023 to the reported June 2024 count of 93,087 (the latest reported provisional data available). The CDC also reports overdose deaths in Connecticut are down 24.14% from the state rolling 12-month…
The day I thought Donald Trump might really win was several months ago when I attended a gathering of people who had or had had family members in prison and were interested in humane drug policy. One of the leaders of the group, said he wasn’t buying Kamala. “A prosecutor is a prosecutor is a…
I always enjoying giving a new medicine, using a new gadget or following a new procedure for the first time. I clearly remember the first time I gave Ativan on standing order, the first time I gave Cardizem, fentanyl, zofran, and ketamine, all new meds at one time. I remember the first time I did a…
Across the nation states are passing initiatives to allow EMS services to leave naloxone kits on scene with at risk patients, their family, friends or bystanders. In Connecticut, kits may be left with a patient who refuses treatment/transport, a patient family member or friend when a patient is transported, as replacement for bystander/layperson who provided…
My Dad was born in 1934. He grew up in White Plains, New York in a modest house with a small yard enclosed by a white picket fence. His father worked for the telephone company and his mother was a nurse. He had a younger brother and sister, Peter and Helen, who he looked out…
I-TEAM: EMS union concerned speed bumps hurt patients. An EMS union in Cleveland was concerned enough about a municipal plan to add more speed bumps to the city streets that they went to the city council to let them know that speed bumps cause harm to patients in pain. They said, while they appreciated the…
Connecticut recently added supraglottic airways to the BLS scope of practice. That means basic EMTs (emergency medical technicians with considerably less training than paramedics) with the approval of their sponsor hospital medical director, no longer have to rely on bag-valve-mask ventilation to breathe for patients in cardiac arrest. Bag valve mask ventilation for those not…
There is a new documentary about EMS called Honorable but Broken that highlights the crisis in EMS of high stress, low pay and lack of financial support from society. The film aims to reach the general public who are largely unaware of what most of us in EMS know too well. A noble profession and…
People ask me if I still work the road, and many are surprised when I say I still do, qualifying it with “just one day a week.” They shake their heads and smile and say, “good for you!” While I do generally work one day a week, I didn’t work at all in July due…
The AP recently published a story about EMS sedation of patients during police encounters — Dozens of deaths reveal risks of injecting sedatives into people restrained by police. I was interviewed for it back in February of 2023, and the final story includes a small quote from me. “I don’t believe he was a candidate…
I recerted CPR, ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support) and PALS (Pediatric Advanced Life Support) late in December. The certs are good for two years. That means it was the 17th time I had recerted each of these mandatory certifications. Our sponsor hospital, like all sponsor hospitals in Connecticut, requires their paramedics to have these certifications…
Many years ago I was asked if I wanted to be an expert witness/consultant in court cases involving paramedics. I declined. One of the reasons I declined was because I wrote a blog about being a paramedic that included descriptions of calls where things didn’t go as they do on TV (or as the public…
This is an old Christmas story I wrote years ago, that I often repost on Christamas. ***Fifteen on the Scale It’s Christmas eve. We get called to one of the local nursing homes for rib pain. The room number sounds familiar. As we wheel our stretcher through the lobby, “Good King Wencelous” plays through the…
I was one of the last people to get a cell phone. My partner Arthur had a flip phone and he used to get so angry when he had to use it to call operations because he was paying by the minute. I remember working with a young partner one day who was on her…
We’re dispatched to an overdose on Ashley Street. I am in the fly car and a BLS crew is in the ambulance. We’re driving around looking for the victim. I don’t see anyone on two passes, but then I hear the BLS unit radio they’ve found him. I swing around to where they are now…
Could it be that xylazine, the latest hyped scourge of the opioid epidemic, might possibly lead to fewer opioid deaths instead of more? The story line has been that xylazine potentiates the effects of fentanyl making the two drugs together a lethal combo. And there is no doubt that the two drugs have been found…