Paramedics: Would any of you like to be shot in Jackson, MS?

I've been watching this story progress since it came out. I'm a paramedic in New England, so I have no idea who Stokes is, nor do I know any of the AMR EMS personnel who work out there. However, everyone around here, and clearly every other EMT/paramedic who has read this story, are infuriated. I've watched the videos of this man talking and I've read every article I've come across.

Apparently, it actually only took them 7.5 minutes from the time they received the call to patient contact. This jackass Stokes was called by the victims mother-in-law who is the one claiming it took them 20 something minutes. I think she's quite confused. So it seems to me that Stokes merely listened to the peeved victims MIL rather than the facts.

Here's the other thing. Stokes is saying that:

"Their policy might be to wait for police officer, but the job is to assume the risk and if they take the job, they must assume the risk to come and aid and help the injured".

Take the risk? This is NO WHERE in my job description. No where does it say anything to the affect of "candidate must be prepared to run unarmed, untrained, and unprotected into scenes that police have not yet deemed safe to enter in order to be the hero and save a patient. Also be aware that this will put you at a high possibility of getting shot and killed yourself".

Then he proposed that they kick out AMR and bring in someone who will be willing to take that risk. WHAT!? You will never find anyone willing to take that risk, and certainly not for the pay of an EMT (or even a paramedic). Furthermore, does anyone see a police department sending an unarmed, unprotected officer into a scene like that? Of course not. Because that's just stupid.

So this guy was shot 6 times. Clearly the person who shot him was out for blood and wanted him dead. If that guy is hiding somewhere and the police have not cleared the scene for EMS to come in, who is to say the shooter won't take shots and the people who are trying to save the guy he clearly wants dead? What am I supposed to do? Hold up my handy Zoll and try to fend off flying bullets coming in my direction?

This man is a complete moron and has no idea how EMS works and apparently doesn't care. All EMS personnel be them EMTs or paramedics take practical stations throughout school and in order to receive their license. In those practicals, the first thing you ALWAYS have to say is "scene safety/BSI" meaning that you have identified the scene to be safe and you are donning your body substance isolation. In all seriousness and per the NREMT guidelines, if you do not say that phrase, you will fail the entire station even if you did everything else flawlessly. Because it has always been and I hope will always be myself, my partner, my patient. In that order.

Well, actually I used to have a job similar to that. It was called "Combat Medic in Vietnam" But no, I certainly couldn't blame civilian EMTs for not wanting to walk into the scene of a shooting until the police had secured the site. Mr. Stokes sounds like a moron.

I distinctly remember in EMS training being taught that you are NOT supposed to become part of the emergent problem. That means you do not jump into raging flood waters to rescue someone with out a life line, grab an electrical victim without turning off the power, and you certainly do not enter a volatile scene without a secure site. There just is no accounting for the election of total idiots these days.

In almost 20 years of being a paramedic, I started out the day with one thought. My partner & I are going home (in one piece) to our families. If I can help people along the way, great. As others have pointed out, you can't help if you get shot, knifed, etc.

It's for good reason that medics in certain areas wear bulletproof vests. I did. I also made it a point to keep relations with the police good. I figured we're all out there together.

The politician / buffoon (a little redundancy there) is an idiot.