Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by stickfigure 224 days ago
That response time is better than where I live, in the country about an hour north of Oakland. Paramedics are about 30m away. We're a volunteer district and I'm a volunteer, but when I get paged it takes a few minutes for me to get dressed, 5m to get to the station, a few minutes to get the engine started, and ? mins to get to the incident. Realistically, the minimum response time is 15m.

Sounds like you keep medbags at home and respond directly to the incident in personally owned vehicles? That's a neat idea. Does everyone have a medbag?
1 comments
pugio 224 days ago
Yes that's right. We have a pretty extensive kit we keep in our car at all times. There's also a mobile app for alerts, navigation, and writing down vital signs and patient care records, and a radio for direct contact to dispatch and other responders.
link
stickfigure 223 days ago
Interesting. We all have apps and radios, but right now there's only one medical bag per engine. We also have ~50 firefighters in the district, I can't imagine keeping that many medbags organized. But maybe for all the EMR/EMT trained people?

I'll mention it to my superiors. It's a neat idea. I'm sure there's some reason we don't do it, probably insurance related (the district discourages - but does not prohibit - arriving on scene POV).

link