Calling 911: What to Expect When Help Arrives

Welcome to Part 2 of our 3-Part 911 series! Join us as we pull back the curtain on the high-octane world of emergency responders, where every second counts and every move could mean life or death. We promise to take you through the cacophony of sirens and urgency that unfolds when a crisis strikes and the 911 call goes out. You'll gain a rare glimpse into the meticulous coordination between police, fire, and EMS teams, and see how their roles, while distinct, interlock in the dance of disaster management. And we don't just talk tactics; we're giving you the scoop on how to interact with these brave souls when they arrive on scene—because, let's face it, nobody plans to dial those three numbers, but if you do, being prepared could make all the difference.

If you thought the first episode was intense, brace yourself for the second chapter where we thrust you into the heart of emergency medicine—a realm where technology meets tenacity. We're unearthing the gritty details of life-saving interventions like the use of intraosseous ports and mechanical compression devices, tools that are as formidable as they are fascinating. Jimmy asks Megan to bring her EMT training to the table, and it might get a bit graphic, but it's all in the name of understanding the profound capabilities and split-second decision-making that defines the frontline of medical emergencies. Be ready for a compelling journey into the world that emergency response personnel navigate daily, and emerge more informed and awed by the dedication and complexity of their lifesaving crafts.

Life Safety Associates specializes in emergency response training for corporate ERT Teams. We help businesses create competent and confident first responders who are ready to handle unexpected emergencies. For more information you find us @lifesafetyassoc or email@lifesafety.com.

Chapters

• 0:00 Emergency Response Procedures and Etiquette
• 16:35 Medical Procedures and Machines in Action

Transcript

Jimmy: 0:23

What's happening? It's another episode of Life and Safety with Jimmy, and again I'm here with Megs, the hostess, with the mostess, my psychic, my favorite female instructor right now To clarify I am the only female instructor we have right now. Yeah, but you know, that's why she's my favorite, so it works out. It works out. Today we're going to continue the series of when and what happens when you call 911. That's right, right, okay, perfect.

Megan: 1:02

I'm sure there's a better name for it, but I don't know what that is.

Jimmy: 1:06

Yeah, so now we're going to talk about the chaos of when you call 911, what to expect. That's right, right, okay, I don't know. We just talked about it for like five minutes and then we had a sidebar tangent and then now we're back to it, so I'm all over the place. So, with that being said, 911 shows up.

Megan: 1:31

Who's involved in 911?

Jimmy: 1:32

Who's involved. What's going to happen, you know, is it dogs and cats living together? Is it chaos? What's happening? And it really depends on the situation, it truly depends on the situation. If there's any type of crime committed, the police will be there. The police, depending on the situation, may get there first. You know, again, it depends on what's happening in the world, they may get there first.

Jimmy: 2:03

Um, if it's a, uh, violent act of violence, in whatever way and they're maybe, you know, you use doing lots of other things in the world, you know, I don't know insert violence someplace else. We live in a big city and they can't get there right away. The fire department sometimes gets there and then they're going to stage because it's not safe for them to be there. They don't have, you know, bulletproof vests and guns and tasers and things like that and training to de-escalate or to fix the situation. I'll say it that way. So they're going to stay away because it's their safety. So sometimes people don't get that, but that definitely happens. Now, when the fire department, police, things like that, are going to get there, they don't know what's happening, they just know what a couple of random people who may or may not have training, who may or may not know the person you know, screaming into a phone and they get a little bit of that information.

Jimmy: 3:13

When I was working on the fire engine, on the ambulances, we would get occasional updates from people calling 911, but lots of times we couldn't trust it because we didn't know who it was coming from and just if it was real.

Jimmy: 3:29

You know, I got a call one time that there was a boy drowning in a pool and we got there and the little kid slipped and fell and hit his head in the pool, but it climbed out of the pool. Apples and oranges are different, right, so you got to be really careful about that. So I bring that up because the fire police, they're going to show up, their adrenaline's going to be pumping. They just drove really fast with lights on, with random people darting in and out of traffic to try to get out of their way or in their way, depending on how you look at it. So they're gonna be pretty fired up. So just understand that and try to comply with what they say and what they do when they first get there. So that's that first part of your question and I think you have more to that question, right yeah, so, um, you said that police are sometimes on the scene.

Megan: 4:28

depending on what the scenario is, who else might you expect to be there?

Jimmy: 4:34

Yeah, for sure You're going to get the fire engine and then you'll get the ambulance to police fire and ambulance 99% of the time. If it's a really big deal like you might get other law enforcement. You might get a specialty law enforcement thing. If it's a chemical spill, you might get the fire department's hazmat team or rescue team, something like that. If it's a really bad car accident or who knows what's going on, you might get some other specialty things. But for sure you're always going to get the fire and the ambulance. And sometimes, being in the situation of the police and remember, with all those people showing up, Depending on where you live and the specialties you have that are manned or trucks have people in them, you're going to get maybe three to four people on a fire engine. You might get two people, three people on an ambulance, depending on if they have a trainee that day. Who knows, you might get six or eight police officers, depending on the situation, If they're doing traffic or crowd control or something like that. You never know. So get out of their way, Try to get out of their way. Try not to interfere.

Jimmy: 5:47

If you've been through our classes, you've heard us say when the fire department gets there, they're going to want to talk to somebody. If you're rendering medical aid Usually the captain with the clipboard is taking down the notes aid Usually the captain with the clipboard is taking down the notes Go to that person or maybe the first firefighter that's there. If you can give a good pass down what you see, what you've done, how they've been acting, and then get out of the way Because they're going to ask the same questions, you're going to do the same evaluation that you've done, hopefully, and then that way they can get a baseline on if the patient's getting better or worse from when you first talked to them and then when they first got there. Yeah, anything to add to that. What do you think?

Megan: 6:29

um, yeah, so when, when I was in emt training, one of the things that surprised me was that um ambulance or emts or paramedics, whoever it is, whoever's on the ambulance typically isn't the first person on scene. Typically those firefighters are going to be there before us, us being EMTs, and the firefighters will start aid. They'll get a rundown of the situation and that's typically because there's more fire stations spread out throughout. You know any given location and so they're most likely closer and so they'll be able to get there faster. So the firefighters will start care and then the ambulance will arrive and then we'll work in conjunction with those firefighters and then, depending on what the situation is, if the patient is to be taken to the hospital, typically the EMTs and medics will take over, put them in the back of the ambulance and drive off. If it's really bad, sometimes they'll have one of the firefighters, like one of the firefighter medics stay in the ambulance, so they have that extra set of hands.

Megan: 7:36

But I didn't realize that. You know, firefighters came to medical calls. I thought firefighters were, you know, for fire exclusively I wish awesome, awesome.

Jimmy: 7:51

What else you got on that as far as what's happening there um, oh man, like stories.

Megan: 8:03

Do you have any good stories about something that you ran into that was unexpected, in a fire emergency, or a medical emergency that you wish people knew?

Jimmy: 8:20

you wish people knew I guess most people. You know it's super easy for me to armchair quarterback situations like hey, I get your loved ones hurt, your loved ones sick. You want to help them. You may want to coddle them, you may want to hold them, you may want to comfort that person, but there's professionals and there's professionals there for a reason right. We call them to help.

Jimmy: 8:46

Try to understand that they're not trying to be totally callous of your feelings. They're trying to help. And if you're holding them and they raise your voice at you or are a little rude, they'll say they get rude with you to move you out of the way. It's not because they don't care, it's not that they're being callous, it's because they want to help. And believe me, if we don't get to help, we're like toddlers, we get upset, we carry that stuff with us.

Jimmy: 9:24

There's a such thing as survivor's guilt. I totally believe that. Yeah, yeah, there's definitely that happens. And if we don't get in there to help, then it it hurts our feelings too, you know. So you know. Just be understanding that they're not totally trying to be callous, they're not trying to be rude. I'll keep repeating that. They just want to help and if you're in the way, they're going to tell you to get out of the way. And if you're really in the way, they're going to have the boys in blue or the sheriffs come in and tell you to get out of the way, and then it just gets worse for everybody. And just because you don't think that the person's helping them the way you think they should be helping them doesn't mean that they're not helping.

Megan: 10:15

Yeah, that's a good one.

Jimmy: 10:17

Right. So they have to assess the situation. They have to assess what's going on and I know it looks like they're just sitting there talking to the person and you're like they can't breathe. Get them in the hospital. Get them there. They have to make sure that they're stable, to get them to the hospital. So be really careful and mindful of that too. I know it's super easy to either said than done In the minute. We're all probably going to freak out. You know it is what it is, but try to, you know, try to keep cool.

Megan: 10:53

I mean, first responders are people too. They have feelings. This is their job, and I mean going into it. We know that we're going to get yelled at a lot and we're seeing people on their worst day, but it doesn't mean that we want to be treated badly. You know we're doing a service to help people and it doesn't feel good to be, you know, yelled at and abused.

Jimmy: 11:16

No, no, but you also. I mean I don't say you get used to it, but you kind of you know it's part of the situation and it's part about what you do after the situation. Right, talking about it, things like that, I have a lot of instances like where this has happened and things like that. I'm just trying to think of a good one that really fits, really fit. I'll tell you a story that my uncle actually told me when he was a paramedic.

Jimmy: 11:56

In the valley, they responded to a infant crying and the culture of the household was that the men did not tend to the baby, apparently, and the ladies of the house went shopping and had a girl's day out and left the baby with the men and the baby, as babies do, used its diaper and the babies started crying because they didn't feed it and they didn't take care of it. It wasn't their job. And I remember, team, this was years ago, over 20 years ago. Things have obviously, hopefully, have changed in society and hopefully in their society even. And the paramedic got there, he was overworked, overstressed, and they got there and they said you know, baby cry, you fix. And the paramedic looked at the baby and pulled open its diaper and the diaper had been soiled and hardened, and soiled and hardened and definitely lots of issues going on there and the paramedic got super upset and like threw the oxygen bag across the room, you know, and apparently that did not go over with the household and, as my uncle told the story, he and the paramedic ran out and had to go lock themselves in the ambulance while the police came and helped them. I'm sure I'm messing that up, but that's kind of the Reader Digest version of that story. Yeah, things like that happen. Everybody's senses are heightened, so you just got to kind of deal with it and again, don't take it personal. Uh, yeah, so I guess that's really kind of what to expect.

Jimmy: 13:50

So if it's a bad traffic accident or something like that, it might be a while, you know, you might have the fire department. You know, cutting the car apart, you know they. I've been asked why do they cut the cars apart? It seems like a waste. Well, the car's damaged. If know, I've been asked why do they cut the cars apart? It seems like a waste. Well, the car is damaged.

Jimmy: 14:06

If it's that bad, they can't open the doors, they can't open the windows, things like that. It's pretty bad, so they're going to cut it open and it's fun. That's the other reason why Don't anybody ever tell you it's not. It's fun to cut cars apart and it's the safest way to get the patient out of the car. That way they don't have to manipulate their back or their neck and moving them around. So you're going to cut it open and get in there and help that patient the best they can.

Jimmy: 14:35

So time it might feel like it's taking forever. It is in your mind, it is, and it's totally okay to feel that way. But they're doing the fastest, safest way they can. A couple episodes ago, I think it was, we kind of trashed some TV shows about how they do things. I will tell you this Chicago Fire when they do extrications, they actually do a really good job. They actually do a really good job as far as setting up the scene, making it safe, going nice and slow, communicating and things like that. A lot of the rest of it is kind of dog crap, but it is what it is. So I'm trying to think of what else is on scene that you might expect you might have to deal with. Go ahead.

Megan: 15:29

Yeah, one thing that I'd like to just, you know, have people be aware of is some medical interventions can be super aggressive and like CPR. If you've never seen CPR in real life, it is not anything like they do in TV. It is aggressive. You have to press hard on that patient's chest. You know other medical inventions where they're sticking tubes down their throat.

Megan: 15:53

That might be I don't know how to say this, but it might be something that you don't want to see of your loved one, seat of your loved one. So once you know the professionals are there, consider letting the professionals be the one to deal with that and get out of the room, especially if you know, if you can't control your emotions, you screaming and crying and yelling and saying, hey, get away from my loved one. You're hurting them. That's not helping the situation. So at that point the best thing you can do is get out of the way. And you know and maybe if you know, god forbid your loved one doesn't make it that might not be the last image you want of them. You know in your head.

Jimmy: 16:33

Yeah, that's a good point, Meg. Another procedure that always kind of gets me is when they put IO ports in the shins. Oh yeah, when they drill medical ports for certain medicines they have to drill into the bone and they take that, you know, basically a hand crank tool, or you know they don't always get a DeWalt or anything like that, like a Milwaukee impact driver it's a hand screw and they just take it and they stick it right in the shin and they screw it down into it and you know they and the shin and they screw it down into it and stick a port for medicine in there.

Jimmy: 17:04

That's pretty gnarly. You don't necessarily want to see that. And to Megan's point about CPR a lot of companies or I don't mean companies as fire engines, just services, I should say it that way are actually going to the machines. The compression machines and those things are gnarly to watch. Yeah, think of a sledgehammer just pushing down on the person, your loved one's chest in a big band and everybody kind of standing around watching it. It's pretty gnarly. So if you can get away from it, yeah, I think that kind of covers it in my mind, the things that have happened in this scene.

Megan: 17:45

And if you have any questions, leave them in the comments.

Jimmy: 17:50

Yeah, hit the comments. No-transcript.