Five Signs of Death
Keeping with my new commentary-about-the-podcast theme... We* generally only dealt with the first two, but the five signs are important to any and all First Responders. When making a run, you are ethically (and in some cases legally) bound to perform whatever life-saving measures you can, despite obvious injuries or your take on the patient's outlook. If the head is still attached, and rigor isn't set, you perform CPR until you get a pulse, or you are relieved by a doctor. Responders can't call a Time of Death, only a doctor can, or so went our training. Where I grew up, 25 minutes by a fast ambulance from the nearest hospital, it wasn't uncommon for EMTs to do CPR on a clinically dead patient for the entire trip, but that was the job. Also contributed to our fairly high turnover rate; shit like that is hard on the mind. There were plenty of times when they were able to bring people back, as it were, but your odds are 6-to-5 and pick 'em when you're that far from help. * I grew up in a family of volunteer firefighters and EMTs. At one point or another, my dad and my two older brothers were EMTs and firemen. My grandpa was supposedly a founding member of the local department. I ran off to college before I could take my EMT classes, but I was a firefighter, as a Cadet when I was 16, and the RealDeal™ at 18. I have charged head-first inside burning structures, performed extrications using the Jaws of Life (Amkus tools, in our case), landed helicopters for AirCare, and commanded accident scenes coordinating multiple agencies including law enforcement, EMS, and fire services. |
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