A little story from my other life


As you have heard by now a coach was killed Sunday night at the Dickey Stevens Baseball field in North Little Rock AR. Initial reports from Fox news was that it took MEMS (the ambulance service) over 10 minutes to respond. The truth is much different, in fact I spent much of Monday debunking rumors.
The truth is that when the first base coach was initially hit the team trainers, and eventually three MEMS Paramedics as well as least two MDs and several nurses came to the field to help with the coach, however no one had notified MEMS dispatch that an ambulance was needed, non one called 911. Finally sometime into the call a Sheriff's Deputy who was on scene called the county dispatch and asked that a MEMS unit be dispatched because a player had been hit. He asked that they meet him in the parking lot where they would be directed to the patient. The MEMS unit was in house at station 8 (across the street)and responded to the call. Total time from call to patient was two minutes and fifty three seconds.

I learned at least 2 lessons.
1. Everyone thought that someone else was taking care of calling. In CPR one of the first things you are taught is, when calling for help designate someone and say, "you go call 911" in the past we may have thought this was funny, after all who would forget to call, right?
2. In the mean time, my crew was booed when they arrived on the field because everyone thought the reason for the delay was the ambulance crew, when the truth was much different. I learned be careful in your judging, sometimes you don't know all the facts.