Category: Uncategorized

I am proud to be a paramedic.  I believe paramedics save lives.  If I or one of my family members were critically ill, I would want a seasoned paramedic taking care of me rather than a brand new basic EMT.  When I say paramedic, i mean that in the sense of a health care provider…

I participated in a powerful documentary about the Fentanyl epidemic in Hartford. The documentary is part of the Frontlines docuseries by Kennard Ray exploring life in Hartford. It focuses on the frontline harm reduction workers and their clients in the battle to keep people alive.

With Emergency Departments becoming increasingly crowded and extended EMS wall time becoming more common, I raise the question should EMS ever bring their equipment into the hospital to treat their patient while waiting for bed assignment and transfer of care?  I am not talking about continuing treatments such as oxygen or a medication drip started…

This is an old Christmas story I wrote years ago, reposted now. ***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 speakers. Gently shone the…

When I see murals in the city, it makes me feel love and joy for life and the people of Hartford. And these Below, gone, but not forgotten.

I received a book in the mail about a month ago.  I slipped it into my briefcase to read while in between calls in the rapid response vehicle in Hartford.  It sat there in its unopened package for weeks as I was too busy between calls and writing PCRs to take it out.  Yesterday, Saturday,…

A young EMT saw me at the hospital this week as we were both bringing patients in.  She had a present for me, she said.  After I got my patient situated in their assigned bed in the hallway and gave a report to the nurse, I went back outside and met the EMT.  She reached…

In EMS, we are eyewitnesses to the inevitable decline of the human body and to death. That’s why when a young person dies it shakes us deeply. They are not supposed to die. It is hard to disassociate yourself from such an event. On those rare occasions that my Pandora’s box of bad EMS memories…

When I first started in EMS I was almost always the first on scene because our local fire department only responded to jaws of life calls and the PD usually only responded to reports of violence assaults. I loved getting their first.  The scene was pristine.  Sure I had a dispatch subject, but from early on…

I was walking in Pope Park, my EMS radio on my belt, and the ambulance idling not a minute away, I stopped by the pond where there is a open air building with a concrete floor where users often sit against the walls and shoot up, out of site of traffic.  I go down there…

A recent article in JEMS argued for an EMS system model, heavy on BLS with just a few experienced medics, similar to the model used in Boston.  The article revolved around an anecdote where two experienced BLS providers helped save a man with a ruptured appendix, by transporting him rapidly to the hospital.  The article…

This week I was asked by the Connecticut Alcohol Drug Policy Treatment SubCommittee to comment on the new FDA approved high dose 8 mg naloxone product, Kloxxado, from the EMS perspective,   Here’s what I told them: Three Points High dose naloxone has no place in EMS/First Responder arsenal. 2. It has not been proven…