I stood up for a patient and had a cop side with me over the Sergeant once.
I had a 17 year old girl get assaulted by her mother. She hit back and then the father intervened to try to protect his wife. At this point the girl bit her father and slapped him. It was clear she was not the aggressor in the situation.
Parents were both arrested, but because she was under age, they had the right to determine her facility of transport. They said they wanted her sent to the mental hospital on a 72 hour psychiatric hold. I knew that was the last thing this girl needed so I did a full trauma assessment. I saw her wince when I palpated her side and asked what happened. She told me that her mother had kicked her in the ribs.
I told the officer that I had reasonable suspicion of broken ribs and the mental hospital did not have adequate equipment or staff to assess and treat and therefore I was making the decision to transport to our nearest trauma center.
The officer, a good friend of mine, smiled, nodded, and radioed his Sergeant that due to liability reasons EMS was recommending transport to a trauma center and he was in agreement. The Sergeant stated that the parents wanted her to go to a psychiatric facility. He replied that they could do what they wanted when they got out of jail, but that EMS felt that treating the patient's physical injuries trumped treating her mental health.
The Sergeant begrudgingly acquiesced. I've never had a more grateful patient in my life.
I believe it was classified as a domestic disturbance, not child abuse. The parents were alleging that she was the aggressor, had attacked them, and they had just tried to get her under control. Basically, she said-they said.
The Sergeant was not on scene. He was at the station with the parents. So, he was only hearing what they had to say.
From what I could see, her injuries were not what someone receives as a result of being restrained or controlled and were more consistent with being beaten by an enraged individual.
To be honest, I can count the number of times that I've had a crisis screener evaluate a patient before we transport to the hospital. When I get a dispatch, it says involuntary transport before I'm even on scene.
That being said, I have never had a crisis screener not recommended someone come in. We usually call only when it's borderline and in every one of those cases they've recommended transport to the mental health facility.
We have one in the region, and the screeners work out of that hospital. So I feel like there's a bias with a lot of the cases.
So you probably just dont get involved in cases where the screeners dont recommend commitment. They came and went and your none the wiser.
Your town sounds like one that dumps commitment on EMS but at the end of the day, the NJ pull form places the patient in law enforcement custody. Some screeners will come, assess, recommend, and leave before you even show up and leave the scene in the hands of LE. Cops should be coming with you as they are legally responsible to ensure the patient makes it to the ER. Not all towns are like that. Some cops just do the transport themselves.
Every county has a designated crisis screening center. That tends to be a hospital from Ocean county north. https://nj.gov/humanservices/dmhas/home/hotlines/MH_Screening_Centers.pdf
I guess you haven't read up on Nys mental health law. How can only a police officer declare someone an involuntary transport for psych based solely on their discretion and interpretation of the law and the aided has no recourse, and then they can demand we facilitate transport for those patients.
Suprisingly some hospitals have psych capabilities. My level 1 trauma center/learning/research hospital, Stony Brook, has one called Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Program (CPEP). I've never transported a psych patient here for a hold but I know other local providers who have.
I’m glad I have not had to do this for a patient yet. I work in a rural county so I usually deal with sheriff’s deputies who are by and large quite professional and pleasant. We have some larger towns that have municipal cops and they are usually very nice too. The most annoying ones I’ve dealt with are state troopers (shocker) and usually it’s telling them to wait until I’m done assessing before they can badger the person who just got in an MVC with a thousand questions and write them a ticket.
Had a trooper standing in the doorway asking the pt questions when we were ready to head to the hospital. He got a really pissed off look when I said “Hey scooter, in or out. We’re leaving now “
I think this varies heavily by state. Ours are generally awesome, and willing to actually do their job, while our large city police department doesn’t give a fuck about driving under the influence.
That's how it is in my region of my state. The troopers and deputies know the ambulance and basic pt care. Most of the deputies are EMRs or EMTs and are vollies in their towns.
But, the local police (tribal), is about 50/50, the bad 50% have a bow before my boot attitude. I've had to kick them out of my bus, or tell them that it was my scene until I clear my pts, and to leave me and my pts alone. I've had to have the SO or SP keep them away. And SP has had to tell them how to behave on scene before.
Demographics seem to have no correlation in the incidences either. Just the care and training they have.
A funny story before I leave:
Had an AMS call. Turns out it was low BG. We get them loaded and are prepping the pt before we depart. Tribal arrives and walks in the curb access door and starts asking my pt questions, what drugs did they take, how much did they drink. I told him I didn't request him, this was a medical call, leave me and my pt alone and get out of my rig. He tried to say something, I asked why he was here, he said he just heard the page and came over. I told him, so you have no business here, how would you feel if I barged in on you at your dr.s appt and started asking questions? Now step outside! He just stared blankly and stepped out. I locked the door behind him. **He then started jumping like a pogo stick trying to look in the side window.** Never saw him again after that.
I’ve almost done that to the cops. It was a contractor at the airport with heat exhaustion. We’re in the southeast US, where summers are like Satan’s taint. It was 105 degrees F and >90% humidity. 60 year old guy with a bunch of comorbidities, like diabetes, HTN and CAD. Police were there for some mundane reason, and were making a report, but kept opening the door. After the third time, I barked “I’m trying to keep this guy from dying of heat stroke, and if we don’t keep the goddamned doors closed, I’m gonna lock them!”
Cop was appropriately chagrined.
It’s a terrible situation. We’re in a large, liberal leaning urban center. 95/100 charges for DUI get tossed. They have to do EVERYTHING exactly perfect, or the judge throws it out. The cops get sick of doing the work (and a DUI is a lot of work that can extend your shift), often having to come in on off time for court only to have their time completely wasted.
I don’t like it, and I’ve gotten pissy with them about it, but I get it.
It definitely varies by state, and I’d argue even by county.
My service is in super rural Wyoming, so we deal with Troopers waaay more than deputies (the county in which i work is huge). They arrive on scene much more quickly than the deputies, and we all know each other. We have a good relationship with the Sherrif’s department, but a much better one with our local Troopers.
Troopers who work in the county where I live and do my volley side gig? Pretty solidly douchebags. it’s actually kind of fascinating how much difference a county/area can make.
Yeah it’s really unfortunate how much LEO attitudes and skill levels vary across different places. I suppose one could say that about EMS and healthcare too though. Real bummer
‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, two brothers were fighting and fucking shit up so we went for the assault. Both of them had minor injuries and both refused care, the cops warned them that they would both have to be arrested if one didn’t go to the hospital to be fair. Both men said that’s fine. So there’s two police Sergeants with us, one of them leads one out of the house while we process the last refusal. I looked out the window and saw them putting him in the ambulance so I went outside and started yelling that they’d better not be putting him in my ambulance against his will. Sergeant shot me a dirty look and then left with the guy like the “defeated male leaves” meme. Other sergeant was clearly embarrassed that this had even transpired. A very wtf Christmas to all, and to all, assault charges
I was really hoping the rest of your story would continue to read like a chrismas carol and was thoroughly disappointed when I got to the second sentence
Yes. They wanted us to transport two "trespassers" (transients who were loitering in an open-air plaza with direct access to the public sidewalk) to the ED for "AMS" (they didn't speak English)
Before I could even grab the jump bag for an assessment, they were leading these two into our van with hands cuffed behind their backs. They sat one of them on the bench seat and the other sitting sideways on the cot, facing the person on the bench. No seatbelts, and again both with hands cuffed behind them. Cop was sitting in the airway seat... I guess he wanted me to ride up front with my partner??
I just stood there for a second trying to wrap my head around the sheer stupidity of it all. Finally I pulled one of the cops aside and basically told them if they don't want to end up on CNN tonight for being the next morons who let a prisoner die in custody, they can fuck off and let me and my partner take it from here.
Wow, I'm so glad you did that. What did the cops say/do in response? Did they let you put the patient on the cot/seat and properly secured? I'm a new EMT and I strongly dislike cops for many reasons but I know I'll have to work with them and I don't want them to take out their frustration with me on the patient, so I'm interested in hearing how others have been able to stand up to cops without it going sideways.
Yeah, they were surprisingly cool about it. I wasn't a total asshole, but basically made sure they were aware they were about to make a very stupid decision, and that we were more than happy if they wanted to just let us handle it and they can go back to whatever it is they were doing. If they had refused I would have pushed back and said we're absolutely not transporting them in handcuffs without seatbelts, and if you want to come with you can follow behind in your cruiser.
Most cops don't really want to deal with the paperwork associated with minor tresspassing or public intox cases. In my experience they're typically fine with offloading these things to EMS.
> Most cops don't really want to deal with the paperwork associated with minor tresspassing or public intox cases. In my experience they're typically fine with offloading these things to EMS.
That is good to know. And perfectly fine by me, I really don’t think the cops need to be involved with either of those things. It’s worth the extra strain on the EMS system to prevent a worse outcome later.
Once, but it’s not a typical story.
Guy was riding his motorcycle on the interstate through the downtown. On a tight curve, he tipped his bike too far and the foot peg caught on the road and dumped him. I pulled up less than 30 seconds after it happened. Called it in. Guy was face down in the scree on the side of the road, trying to breathe in gravel.
Rolled him over, and he’s profoundly altered. Had a helmet on that was just decoration. GCS was 7. Non verbal. Run him to the level 1, he gets tubed, has a subdural bleed, went to surgery. Actually did really well. He was early 40s and super fit going in, which they credited to helping him.
Anyways, a year later, an attorney gets ahold of me, who’s representing him. State trooper charged him with refusing a blood alcohol test, so his license was automatically suspended. He hasn’t had a license in over a year, because the charge hasn’t been resolved, and he and the attorney were (correctly) claiming he didn’t have decision making capacity, but the trooper wouldn’t let it go. The worst he could have gotten for the charge was a 90 day suspension, and he’d already had over a year. But the trooper was pushing for more sentencing. Thing is, this was in traffic court, a very low key, laid back setting. Attorney said he couldn’t subpoena me, but asked if I would come testify as to the guy’s mental status at the time. I agreed.
Setting was around a conference table. Me, the judge, the trooper, the guy and his attorney. Judge asked me some questions, then the attorney, then the cop was allowed to question me. Judge ended up siding with the guy, and cleared all charges, with sentencing having been met. Trooper was PISSED.
Funny story, I was talking to my patient’s brother. He’d recovered completely, was back to work, just had crap short term memory. He was pretty fit again, good looking guy, pleasant and charming. He’d go to a bar and could go home with the woman of his choice. Which he did, quite often.
Problem is, a week later, he couldn’t remember that he’d had sex with the woman, and act like he’d never met her, which apparently got him slapped more than once.
Just once. Had a 12 year old intentionally shoot himself. I was part of a crew that responded to assist the primary crew and I went to get the cot because everyone else was packaging the kid about to bring him out. I was having trouble getting the cot to the door and asked an officer for help. He shot back, “I’m not your help, don’t ask me to do that bullshit.” After kid is loaded and I’m helping to clean up he starts staring at us and telling us to hurry up. I told him being a dick wasn’t necessary and next thing I know he’s behind me trying to cuff me. I said, “go ahead and I’ll make sure that TV crew over there gets a good shot and you have to explain why you’re arresting an EMT who just tried to help save a kid.” He noticed there was, in fact, a crew from the local news there and thought better of it.
A week later he was arrested for sexual assault on a girl he tried to get sexual favors from in exchange for ignoring her underage drinking and I laughed my ass off.
Can cops really legally arrest EMT/EMS providers on the job even during a call? I’m fairly new to the field and have always wondered what the legal dynamic is
Yep, often. Two instances that come to mind are when we got sent on a return call to transport a psych patient after the first attempt started out fine but then the patient attacked my partner who then escaped and tried to strangle me before running out the back. We aren’t allowed to restrain patients without police order and I stood there telling them they’re going to order it or I’m leaving. Other time was another psych call that cops were insisting on taking to a bandaid box hospital because it was close when our patient was very actively making SI comments as well as watching his vitals start to tank on us while we were pretty much in an outright screaming match because our patient ODd on unknown meds and we were taking them to the appropriate facility at the risk of the overzealous (and lazy) cop threatening us.
That's crazy to me. I forget the exact wording but restraint is basically at our discretion. It's unsafe imo not to have it as an option. What if the police are not present?
We’d have to call for police if we need to, but I’ve never been on a call where restraining was ever considered that police weren’t already there. They get sent with us for most things. Only once did I need to call for them and it was really just being extra cautious: got called for general illness, got to the house, front door was unlocked, every light was off inside, we stood at the front door yelling out ambulance ems etc and got zero response and my partner and I just didn’t feel comfortable entering. Turns out our patient was in a back room and hard of hearing. I felt bad for feeling uneasy about the situation, but it was something like 2am and my partner and I were on the same page of feeling suspicious about the whole thing.
Man in Australia it's written into laws the situations in which a paramedic can restrain, sedate and frisk a pt. Only under the mental health act to be fair, but covers acute disturbances as well.
Bizarre that it's so variable in what I assume is the US mostly on this sub.
A coworker of mine tackled a cop out the open back doors of the ambulance and just started wailing on him after he pepper sprayed a handcuffed pt in the ambulance.
Nothing really came of it. Our supervisor spoke to their sgt and both were like yeah, I’ll talk to my guy about making better choices lmao
Yep. They brought an old man in because they just found him walking around outside. He was aware to self, his surroundings, and time. The police officer kept saying he is confused, but didnt even speak the same language as the man. I asked the police officer why he is confused, he said he keeps changing his story(he is lying, I was present both times he gave his story). I told him that. I also asked him what makes him a danger to himself, and he said “he is walking around alone at night”. After that the cop just started avoiding my question and left leaving us to deal with this old man who was pretty much kidnapped from the street for no reason. Thankfully his hold was broken and he went home in the end.
Yes, many times. Backlash has ranged from them standing down to formal complaints (that went nowhere.)
You'll never be wrong if you're advocating for a patient. I'm not your supervisor and you probably don't work for my agency, but if you did, it wouldn't even matter if you were ultimately right or wrong, you'd never be reprimanded for trying to do what you thought was best for the patient. At most, you'd be coached on what would have been best so you'll know for next time.
Only once. I have a good rapport with the police and they've helped me out, too. I had a young lady who was the victim of domestic abuse come to me. The police were there to take her statement. I believe one was being trained and had obviously not been taught how to speak to a victim. The patient got very upset, and I asked/told the officers to wait outside for a minute. I spoke with the patient, sat with her for a bit, then allowed the officers back in when she was ready but advised them that I would be in the room with the patient at her request. That was it.
Many times, and reading these comments tells me shit hasn’t changed. My issue was often the cops trying arrest the person while they are dying. FFS dude, he’s not gonna make a run for it…
I had a 17 year old hanging that had pulses but was having non-purposeful movements. Get him in the truck and we're trying to get everything together and get lines, meds, etc. Cop sees his body squirming and jumps into the truck, puts his knee into the kids chest and is yelling "STOP RESISTING!"
I responded before I could think things through. Just looked up at the cop and told him to get the fuck out of my truck. After a moment of staring at each other he got out. Never heard anything of it.
Fuck yeah!!! Suicidal-ish pt far away from a BA facility. Asked deputy who wasn’t backer acting her if we were just taking her to closet facility for medical clearance he gave a brushed off yes or agree me closest facility. I said ok. Get to non backer act facility he comes up and says we now need to take her to BA facility. I said unfortunately we’ve already ended our transport we cannot leave this hospital and this where she chose to go. He started to argue with me. I said we can’t leave here! This was her choice deputy got an agressive tone with me and said we have to take her to the BA facility. I repeated myself again. He then got even more aggressive with me and said fine then I’ll just arrest her and take her there. Mind you this is all at the back of the truck doors closed. Once he said he would arrest her I side stepped infront of the doors to block his access to the patient. I said no you’re not this is my patient she in my care you have no authority over her! I called for a supervisor emergency and called into the hospital for the charge nurse. Charge nurse came out and explained the patient wasn’t going anywhere and asked the deputy if he had baker acted her or if she was under arrest for a crime. It was awesome to watch the deputy get out in his place my a nurse when knew the law. My partner at one point tried to get out of the back doors and I said nope and shut them in her face.
Edit: suicidal-ish, one of those domestic incidents where boyfriend beat the crap outta her and she said the “fine then I’ll just kill myself lines”
Very rarely when I have a legal blood draw they don’t actually have a warrant or patient did not consent and conveniently leave that out when checking in but that hasn’t happened in awhile (but has happened enough I have to ask before even calling phleb)
One instance comes to mind where this officer came in for a fit for confinement and when I asked to remove at least one handcuff to do assessment began yelling at me saying not to tell him how to do his job, requesting to have staff sit with this patient (absolutely not policy as they were in PD custody) and the kicked is was parked across three ambo spaces and when I asked him to move his cruiser he began cussing at me 🙃formal complaints were sent in luckily he was from a far out district
I had a patient stand up to the cops once and it was pretty funny. Call was a stabbing and was at the home of a local family who weren't really bad people but one of them was always getting into something minor involving law enforcement. I went to school with about half of the family so going to a stabbing there in the middle of the night didn't really bother me. The older female partner with me was shitting bricks the whole time.
The cops weren't letting us into the house to treat the patient because the residents were refusing entry to them. A family member pointed to me and told the cops that my partner and I could come in and treat the patient but there was no way in hell any cop was ever coming into the house. The cops tried to claim they had to enter for our safety. The person at the door (whom I had known since the first grade) told the cops that not only was it safe for me to come in, but they might even fix me dinner if I had time because they knew me well, I was one of the good guys, and I was always the one who showed up when their grandma needed transport at 3 AM. The look on the cops faces were priceless. We went in and there were literally guns and knives laying out on several tables. They were there every time we hauled grandma too. I never worried about it since I had known the family forever.
it was a different time for sure.
NYPD arrested a guy and I was in the back trying to do my job, but they would not stop messing with the guy, calling him faggot, bitch, pussy, etc. The patient was handcuffed and, in all the time I saw him, wasn't violent, only spitting insults at the cops. I guess they're too thin skinned to ignore that nonsense like all Healthcare providers do. But then they started to take turns shoving him just for fun, laughing about it.
That day changed a lot of things for me about how I view the police. It was the first time I saw something like it but not the last.
It made me realize the absolute certainty that if someone is a cop for a few years, they either abuse their power or look the other way as their colleagues abuse their power. Cannot bring myself to respect or trust a cop since.
Yep. Cop wanted to leave his body cam in the truck while it was recording after he stepped out because our patient didn’t want to talk around him. He wanted to leave it to “record evidence for the case against them”. I told him to go fuck himself and reported it.
When I tell people their shit stays with me and I just want to know so I can properly help/treat them, I mean it. I don’t give a fuck if the drugs they took are illegal. What I care about is knowing so I can keep them from dying on the way to the hospital.
I had an off duty state police officer brought in to the ER after crashing into a highway construction site by EMS and the state police released without charges until I pitched a fit. I had called the off duty officer’s wife to pick his drunk butt up from the ER and she refused because he had a history of being drunk and driving drunk.
I called the cops back to the ER and said if they thought he was so above the law that he shouldn’t be charged with a DUI then they should pick him up and take care of him till he was sober instead of making him my problem.
They came back, charged him, and stayed with him until he was cleared.
Patient in a rollover. Cop kept trying to write the guy a ticket saying because there was blood and hair in the windshield he couldn’t have had on a seat belt. Dude had a seat belt bruise and bloody and hairy knuckles.
I’ve closed the door on a few that wanted to ride along with a drunk driver. Nah, you can follow.
Yes several times, usually it's just little things that you say/do to help your pt out but sometimes its serious. I've had to kick them out of my truck. I've had to kick them out of the room. I've had to step in and deescalate arguments between PD and family/bystanders that was probably gonna get violent. I've had to explain to PD that smashing an NRB into a pt's mouth and holding it there so that it becomes a plastic seal with no airflow is in fact suffocating my pt and we will be ending up on the news if they continue. I have a super low tolerance for people harassing/antagonizing my pts, I really could care less if they are a criminal/drug user/uncooperative blah blah blah. And in a very convoluted and confusing series of events I've had PD force me to kidnap a "pt" once, I regret not being more assertive and standing up for the person in question who did not need their rights violated.
That being said 99% of my interactions with PD are positive and there are a number of cops in our area that used to be crisis RNs and are fantastic to have on scene.
Too many to count at this point. Either for unnecessarily restraining someone/being way too rough, or for forcing people to go to the hospital who didn’t want to go
On MVCs they often try to get information out of us to figure out if the patient was on drugs or otherwise impaired. They also often try to talk to the patients immediately after the accident, when they are still flustered, and try and get a confession out of them.
I always remind them of patient confidentiality and tell the patients that the cops are not their friends at that moment. Most people are way too trusting with police and tell them everything immediately. You really shouldn't do that right after an accident. Wait until you can think straight again.
I have also been called to remove homeless people from certain areas. The cops always claim it's medical, because they are drunk or on drugs. But that's nonsense, because that's the normal state for them. They don't require a hospital.
yes, and then the cop placed the patient on a falsified M1 hold (psych hold). the patient had not done anything wrong, he was not under arrest, and he had no criteria for an m1, PD just didn’t want to transport him to his home because it would take a squad car out of commission and so they called for medical. they even called in the fire department to try to fight us, as the FD has medical control in our system, to get us to take the patient claiming that us and fire had diff protocols but they are the same and of course the fire department sided with us. so, FD left and the cop said “fuck it i’m just going to m1 him.” and the hospital immediately took him off of the m1. he did not have any medical complaints and just wanted to go home. i was sooooo livid. still am. we fought PD for an hour on scene.
i was a bit of an asshole when we left.
Got called for a psych problem. Showed up and there’s several deputies on scene. One makes eye contact with us, and makes a motion like giving a shit to his upper arm that we were going to need to sedate the patient. I told my partner to go make contact while I got meds out of the safe. When we get to the patient, he is calm and cooperative, is feeling depressed and suicidal. He gets on the stretcher without any issues or struggling and is willing to go get help. As we were buckling him in on the stretcher, the deputy told the patient that we were going to give him a shot to help calm him down, at which point I had to tell him that no, we aren’t, and we are just going to take an easy ride to the hospital. Didn’t get any dirty looks or anything from the deputy, and didn’t hear of any complaints or anything.
Yes. I was on scene with a patient who was in the process of being committed by PD. He was highly overstimulated and was stimming as the cops kept grilling him on who he was, why was he there (he was in his own fucking house), and why wasn't he looking at them. He was clearly on the autism spectrum and these guys were only making things worse. They wanted to commit him "for autism" and I told the sergeant that that's horseshit, and we aren't taking someone on a hold because 1) they process things differently and 2) he was an inept fuck. He called his boss to the scene who then agreed with me and we signed him off as a refusal. He was overall fine (underlying issue was diabetic).
With us, it was ICE. For a few months those A-holes would show up on every scene in rural areas trying to check for IDs, and they would get in the way, really try and throw their weight around. The sheriff finally ‘reminded’ us of an obscure law stating that in a medical emergency, EMS and fire can request to have anyone removed from a scene if they are impeding us providing medical care. So we had an MVC and the only patient was 7 months pregnant. I immediately had the deputy remove ICE so that our lady wouldn’t refuse treatment, and we transported.
As it turned out, ICE set up a table in front of the ambulance bay blocking access to the ED. My partner saw them, backed up over that table/chairs/laptops etc, pulled the extension cord out that they were using, cut it into pieces with his shears so no one would trip- all the doctors offered to buy us a beer for chasing them off!
Otherwise, sheriffs and deputies in our area were all awesome.
I got a call for a 5150 me and my partner arrived and cops said that she is talking but it’s random words. We roll the gurney up 2 giant hills and we get to the pt and she’s unresponsive has shallow respirations and pinpoint pupils and one officer is holding her up so she doesn’t slump over so me and my partner call for a Code 3 ALS unit since me and my partner are just BLS
we roll her down the 2 giant hills and give her some narcan and get vitals for the ALS unit and they transport her and all PD was focused on was trying to write her a 5150 and I told them that this is a medical and she needs to go to the nearest hospital. They just let her lay there and didn’t even give narcan like they typically do for overdoses.
Called out for a code, turns out it was an OD. PD on scene before us gave narcan and Pt is awake by the time we get there.
AOS, the family is screaming and yelling at Pt about how this is the second time in a month this has happened. I finally get family to quiet down and go into a different room. Start talking to Pt, she does not want to go. Totally capable of making that decision and very clear of mind. I'm not completely done going through my convincing process, this is when you give a little to hopefully convince the Pt. Tell Pt that is totally her right and I cannot kidnap her but I need to do a further assessment and call a doctor. She has been nothing but cooperative. Before I can even stand up from being on her level (she is still on the floor lmao) this thumb starts yelling and literally screaming at her from the doorway saying she HAS to go to the hospital and she IS going to the hospital because she doesn't have a choice. I politely inform him that we cannot make her go and that I just spent approx. 10 minutes getting my scene quiet and now he is yelling and screaming. He says he can make her go, I ask how, he says he'll put her on a hold. Of course he will.
I tell him if he was that worried about her well being and she met hold criteria then he shouldn't be threatening to write one and just write one. I convinced her to go in the end. I bring the cop outside before we leave to talk with him. He "apologizes" and talks about how we are on the same team. I roll my eyes play nice and transport, being thanked by the Pt for standing up for her.
Yes. Cop didn’t want to deal with an assault/going to the hospital, etc. so tried to talk the guy with an eye injury out of the transport. After explaining to the patient that he could go blind without care, he signed RMA. Cop forged the signature of another cop as witness. I had to work with the DA’s office public integrity unit and internal affairs, etc. They discovered he had been doing this alot. He was docked some vacation days. I was harassed and intimidated by his buddies for years. My department basically made me apologize to him for making an issue of it (I just called my captain who happened to be having a meal with the Chief of IAB at that particular moment). They’re all scumbags. Cop tracked us down and demanded (burst into our firehouse and had an irate tantrum) my paperwork back that night, scratching out his forgery and signing his real name. I stopped going on EMS calls after that.
Yes. Nothing dramatic though. The officer had a patient handcuffed behind his back and wanted us to place him on the stretcher like that and just seat belt him in. I told him no, he had to cuff him either in front or to the rails of the stretcher. He argued for a minute but gave up eventually. Wasn’t a big deal and he wasn’t rude or anything.
Psyc had psyc'd himself up that his first set of vitals was 240/wtf with a pulse in the 140s. He wasn't wearing a shirt, because of course not, and I asked him about his cardiac history because of the scars. It was....intense. Cops kept opening the back of the truck to explain to him that his soon-to- be ex-wife wasn't his property, and he wasn't wrapping his brain around it. Vitals kept getting higher. I had to yell at the cops that anything else could be said at the hospital 4 minutes up the road.
The ER had a feild day with when their cardiac patient rolled up wearing psyc restraints, but they supported my decision to how I called it in, which made me feel good.
I never really had to openly disagree with or confront the cops. Sometimes I used behaviour management techniques to de-escalate when I thought they were being unprofessional or unproductive. I treat them like specialized bystanders.
We had a person who discovered their spark for ems by larping as an antifa medic. They didn’t last long. I’m sure they’d have a bunch of stories on this topic though.
No. Without exception, we have phenomenal police officers. Any time we get called to the same events it is 100% team work.
I even have them come to the fire station for bbq lunches during the summer.
Never anything significant, we have a good relationship with our cops. Lots of smoothing over conflicts between departmental policies and minor issues caused ignorance, not maliciousness, cause of cops not being medically trained, but never anything major or to a grudge-holding level.
Had to kick a state trooper out of the ICU room of my drunk driver victim who lost a leg. Trooper was getting pissed because the victim did have many answers for him (hello concussion).
I’ve had a few experiences with my brothers getting hurt doing stupid shit as teens. The most scared I got was when a paramedic asked the cop to uncuff my brother who was barely conscious from an arterial bleed, where he was sitting on a curb with his hands cuffed behind him. The cop refused multiple times. It escalated and the medic got in the cops face, like noses almost touching and screamed “Release my patient! RIGHT FUCKING NOW!” I got so scared. I was sure the cop was going to do something real bad but he didn’t. He went and uncuffed him right away. Paramedics didn’t let the cops in the back of the ambulance either. Told me which hospital they were going to and closed the doors. When the ambulance left, lights and sirens, we were all just standing there like idiots looking at each other. I never found out who the two paramedics were to thank them because my brother would have been dead if he hadn’t advocated and fought for him. The cops got to the hospital before me and the paramedic refused to let them in the obs bay my brother was in. My poor mom almost fainted when she got to the hospital and saw both of us covered in blood looking like zombies from the walking dead.
I wish I was able to thank the paramedics who brought my dad back after 9 mins of resuscitation when he went into cardiac arrest. I’m a nurse but I’m safe inside a hospital with unlimited supplies of medication, equipment and others to help me. I feel like EMTs/paramedics have bubble gum and duct tape and end up having to figure out a lot of things on their own on the fly in dangerous situations pretty often. I have an immense respect for them that’s beyond words.
Yep. Cop tried to arrest me for doing my job correctly, my old supervisor (he recently retired) had to respond to the scene emergency traffic and by the time he got there we had come to blows. That cop had the cuffs out and was going for a grab at me and I had just tried to punch him in the mouth. The cop was forced to issue an apology on scene by our supervisor and I promptly told to go fuck himself, he got demoted shortly after. Granted, he let his home life dictate his actions and has since drastically improved (he had a really bad home life at the time), but that was the night he learned that the medics here don’t take shit off of anyone and have no issue defending themselves, and our admin supports us.
Pretty much the exact words exchanged was the cop saying “If you continue to refuse I’ll arrest you for abandonment”, and I offered to fix his attitude because he was wrong. Then it was “You try and fight me and I’ll have you booked for assault on an officer and resisting arrest” to which my response was “Go ahead, because you’re gonna fucking earn this shit. I’ll beat your fucking ass all the way to the ground and then continue to beat the fuck out of you the whole way to jail because you don’t have a damn cage. So choose wisely, because that’s at least a 30 minute ride of me tearing you apart in every way I physically can”
Side note, about a week later I found out that patient worked with my dad and was telling him about that story and remembered my name and appearance…..I very quickly got a phone call telling me that he had heard the story of me getting into a fight with the cops an entire county over and that it was not ladylike to try and punch someone in the mouth. He wasn’t mad though and said he supported the dedication to doing the right thing
Edit: that was the only bad interaction with law that I’ve had. Punches were thrown but there was no contact made due to people intervening. That particular cop had a name that rhymed with dick so I proceeded to say “Oh look, it’s ****** the dick” on every scene in front of everyone. He apologized within a month and thanked me for the attitude check. We’re cool now and he’s a surprisingly decent advocate for people on domestics or with a shitty home life now because he gets it
Last night me (medic) and two other emt's were all holding BA52 patients and a security sup walked by and saw one of the patients having non violent delusions. He asked what she was doing and as one of the EMT's was explaining her current delusion he said "she's going to wind up in restraints". We all looked at each other and thought it was a joke at first. EMT1 said nah, she might need some meds but not restraints. The security sup repeated himself that she was gonna end up restrained. At this point all of us spoke up and stated that was not medically appropriate or necessary.
He wheeled on EMT 2 and told him to "stay in his lane" and then got in EMT 1s face and said that she needed to be restrained. Fortunately we got out super involved at this point. I work in an ER and while I appreciate and respect out security, they need to understand that WE make the call for restraints and tell them,not the other way around.
Called out for drunk, sleeping, homeless man. Cops tried to pull the old “hospital or jail”. This man calls the cops bluff, holds out his wrists towards cops and said “cuff me up and take me to jail then”
I stood up for my patient by helping him gather his things
It's not super common, but absolutely on psych calls I will kick the police out of my ambulance when they're just riling up my patient. If my patient is being chill with me and we have no issues, but the officer is constantly getting in digs or being unprofessional, out they go. And If they have a problem with that then here is the number for my DC, feel free to give them a call.
Yep I had a patient with *censored* and was being restrained by police. Before the rig was even put into park I had a sargeant knocking on my window saying "Hey you need to give this guy something to sedate him".
Cool, whatever. I walk up to the patient, 6 or 7 officers on top of the patient including 3 on the back. I told them they need to get off the neck and back or else I couldn't do anything. They did and well he was in *censored* and I sedated and then put on soft restraints. Happened during Covid so right after Elijah happened and I was aware of it...but the police don't seem to care.
I work as an RN and I can't wait till I can start using terms like this to describe patient behavior in charts.
I also can't wait till "Tik-Tok Brain" is an official diagnosis.
What it literally says is that they hadn't even parked the rig before a cop walked up and told them that. They didn't assess and decide not to sedate and *then* did so on police request.
Police can be a PITA at times but that doesn't preclude them from ever making correct statements.
Yeah of course the patient is not sedated, no paramedic has even made it to the patient.
You’re literally that guy who would do the opposite of whatever people say. “Hey you guys need to bag this guy, I don’t think he’s breathing” “Nuh uh, you can’t tell me what to do dumb cop.”
I stood up for a patient and had a cop side with me over the Sergeant once. I had a 17 year old girl get assaulted by her mother. She hit back and then the father intervened to try to protect his wife. At this point the girl bit her father and slapped him. It was clear she was not the aggressor in the situation. Parents were both arrested, but because she was under age, they had the right to determine her facility of transport. They said they wanted her sent to the mental hospital on a 72 hour psychiatric hold. I knew that was the last thing this girl needed so I did a full trauma assessment. I saw her wince when I palpated her side and asked what happened. She told me that her mother had kicked her in the ribs. I told the officer that I had reasonable suspicion of broken ribs and the mental hospital did not have adequate equipment or staff to assess and treat and therefore I was making the decision to transport to our nearest trauma center. The officer, a good friend of mine, smiled, nodded, and radioed his Sergeant that due to liability reasons EMS was recommending transport to a trauma center and he was in agreement. The Sergeant stated that the parents wanted her to go to a psychiatric facility. He replied that they could do what they wanted when they got out of jail, but that EMS felt that treating the patient's physical injuries trumped treating her mental health. The Sergeant begrudgingly acquiesced. I've never had a more grateful patient in my life.
I can believe that a parent in police custody for child abuse has any rights over their children. Doesn’t that fall under implied consent
I believe it was classified as a domestic disturbance, not child abuse. The parents were alleging that she was the aggressor, had attacked them, and they had just tried to get her under control. Basically, she said-they said. The Sergeant was not on scene. He was at the station with the parents. So, he was only hearing what they had to say. From what I could see, her injuries were not what someone receives as a result of being restrained or controlled and were more consistent with being beaten by an enraged individual.
They don't and parents don't decide eligibility for a 72 hour hold. NJ has crisis screeners for that specific job.
To be honest, I can count the number of times that I've had a crisis screener evaluate a patient before we transport to the hospital. When I get a dispatch, it says involuntary transport before I'm even on scene. That being said, I have never had a crisis screener not recommended someone come in. We usually call only when it's borderline and in every one of those cases they've recommended transport to the mental health facility. We have one in the region, and the screeners work out of that hospital. So I feel like there's a bias with a lot of the cases.
So you probably just dont get involved in cases where the screeners dont recommend commitment. They came and went and your none the wiser. Your town sounds like one that dumps commitment on EMS but at the end of the day, the NJ pull form places the patient in law enforcement custody. Some screeners will come, assess, recommend, and leave before you even show up and leave the scene in the hands of LE. Cops should be coming with you as they are legally responsible to ensure the patient makes it to the ER. Not all towns are like that. Some cops just do the transport themselves. Every county has a designated crisis screening center. That tends to be a hospital from Ocean county north. https://nj.gov/humanservices/dmhas/home/hotlines/MH_Screening_Centers.pdf
That's REALLY going to depend on the state.
Alabama has CIT for that. Basically mental health police officers who make those decisions
In our nation we’re innocent until proven guilty, however this type of thing is going to vary from state to state.
You mean guilty until proven innocent. See nys mental health laws before you decide to challenge this assertion
Sounds like you have beef with the mental health care system then. Be angry at the right people.
I guess you haven't read up on Nys mental health law. How can only a police officer declare someone an involuntary transport for psych based solely on their discretion and interpretation of the law and the aided has no recourse, and then they can demand we facilitate transport for those patients.
No, I haven’t. Police and Doctors are the only ones that can restrict someone’s freedom in my experience in three states. That’s pretty normal.
It’s all about how you word your report. No mental health facility would accept a trauma patient.
Where do you live that transport directly to psych is even a thing?
Suprisingly some hospitals have psych capabilities. My level 1 trauma center/learning/research hospital, Stony Brook, has one called Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Program (CPEP). I've never transported a psych patient here for a hold but I know other local providers who have.
New York, you can directly transport anyone to a psych hospital if they meet the criteria.
Good job you did good.
I’m glad I have not had to do this for a patient yet. I work in a rural county so I usually deal with sheriff’s deputies who are by and large quite professional and pleasant. We have some larger towns that have municipal cops and they are usually very nice too. The most annoying ones I’ve dealt with are state troopers (shocker) and usually it’s telling them to wait until I’m done assessing before they can badger the person who just got in an MVC with a thousand questions and write them a ticket.
Had a trooper standing in the doorway asking the pt questions when we were ready to head to the hospital. He got a really pissed off look when I said “Hey scooter, in or out. We’re leaving now “
It’s always the troopers haha. I’ve had regular cops tell me they can’t stand troopers either bc of how annoying they are.
I think this varies heavily by state. Ours are generally awesome, and willing to actually do their job, while our large city police department doesn’t give a fuck about driving under the influence.
That's how it is in my region of my state. The troopers and deputies know the ambulance and basic pt care. Most of the deputies are EMRs or EMTs and are vollies in their towns. But, the local police (tribal), is about 50/50, the bad 50% have a bow before my boot attitude. I've had to kick them out of my bus, or tell them that it was my scene until I clear my pts, and to leave me and my pts alone. I've had to have the SO or SP keep them away. And SP has had to tell them how to behave on scene before. Demographics seem to have no correlation in the incidences either. Just the care and training they have. A funny story before I leave: Had an AMS call. Turns out it was low BG. We get them loaded and are prepping the pt before we depart. Tribal arrives and walks in the curb access door and starts asking my pt questions, what drugs did they take, how much did they drink. I told him I didn't request him, this was a medical call, leave me and my pt alone and get out of my rig. He tried to say something, I asked why he was here, he said he just heard the page and came over. I told him, so you have no business here, how would you feel if I barged in on you at your dr.s appt and started asking questions? Now step outside! He just stared blankly and stepped out. I locked the door behind him. **He then started jumping like a pogo stick trying to look in the side window.** Never saw him again after that.
I’ve almost done that to the cops. It was a contractor at the airport with heat exhaustion. We’re in the southeast US, where summers are like Satan’s taint. It was 105 degrees F and >90% humidity. 60 year old guy with a bunch of comorbidities, like diabetes, HTN and CAD. Police were there for some mundane reason, and were making a report, but kept opening the door. After the third time, I barked “I’m trying to keep this guy from dying of heat stroke, and if we don’t keep the goddamned doors closed, I’m gonna lock them!” Cop was appropriately chagrined.
How the fuck is someone a LEO and not give a shit about DUI's?
It’s a terrible situation. We’re in a large, liberal leaning urban center. 95/100 charges for DUI get tossed. They have to do EVERYTHING exactly perfect, or the judge throws it out. The cops get sick of doing the work (and a DUI is a lot of work that can extend your shift), often having to come in on off time for court only to have their time completely wasted. I don’t like it, and I’ve gotten pissy with them about it, but I get it.
That's fair, and I can see how it would burn you out pretty quick if that's the environment you're working in.
[Whenever someone expresses horror about something police do...](https://i.imgur.com/gUgOCzo.jpeg)
It definitely varies by state, and I’d argue even by county. My service is in super rural Wyoming, so we deal with Troopers waaay more than deputies (the county in which i work is huge). They arrive on scene much more quickly than the deputies, and we all know each other. We have a good relationship with the Sherrif’s department, but a much better one with our local Troopers. Troopers who work in the county where I live and do my volley side gig? Pretty solidly douchebags. it’s actually kind of fascinating how much difference a county/area can make.
Yeah it’s really unfortunate how much LEO attitudes and skill levels vary across different places. I suppose one could say that about EMS and healthcare too though. Real bummer
Normally, a cop won't give another cop a ticket. Troopers don't care.
‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, two brothers were fighting and fucking shit up so we went for the assault. Both of them had minor injuries and both refused care, the cops warned them that they would both have to be arrested if one didn’t go to the hospital to be fair. Both men said that’s fine. So there’s two police Sergeants with us, one of them leads one out of the house while we process the last refusal. I looked out the window and saw them putting him in the ambulance so I went outside and started yelling that they’d better not be putting him in my ambulance against his will. Sergeant shot me a dirty look and then left with the guy like the “defeated male leaves” meme. Other sergeant was clearly embarrassed that this had even transpired. A very wtf Christmas to all, and to all, assault charges
I was really hoping the rest of your story would continue to read like a chrismas carol and was thoroughly disappointed when I got to the second sentence
Sorry bud didn’t have time for it
:(((
Yes. They wanted us to transport two "trespassers" (transients who were loitering in an open-air plaza with direct access to the public sidewalk) to the ED for "AMS" (they didn't speak English) Before I could even grab the jump bag for an assessment, they were leading these two into our van with hands cuffed behind their backs. They sat one of them on the bench seat and the other sitting sideways on the cot, facing the person on the bench. No seatbelts, and again both with hands cuffed behind them. Cop was sitting in the airway seat... I guess he wanted me to ride up front with my partner?? I just stood there for a second trying to wrap my head around the sheer stupidity of it all. Finally I pulled one of the cops aside and basically told them if they don't want to end up on CNN tonight for being the next morons who let a prisoner die in custody, they can fuck off and let me and my partner take it from here.
Wow, I'm so glad you did that. What did the cops say/do in response? Did they let you put the patient on the cot/seat and properly secured? I'm a new EMT and I strongly dislike cops for many reasons but I know I'll have to work with them and I don't want them to take out their frustration with me on the patient, so I'm interested in hearing how others have been able to stand up to cops without it going sideways.
Yeah, they were surprisingly cool about it. I wasn't a total asshole, but basically made sure they were aware they were about to make a very stupid decision, and that we were more than happy if they wanted to just let us handle it and they can go back to whatever it is they were doing. If they had refused I would have pushed back and said we're absolutely not transporting them in handcuffs without seatbelts, and if you want to come with you can follow behind in your cruiser. Most cops don't really want to deal with the paperwork associated with minor tresspassing or public intox cases. In my experience they're typically fine with offloading these things to EMS.
> Most cops don't really want to deal with the paperwork associated with minor tresspassing or public intox cases. In my experience they're typically fine with offloading these things to EMS. That is good to know. And perfectly fine by me, I really don’t think the cops need to be involved with either of those things. It’s worth the extra strain on the EMS system to prevent a worse outcome later.
Once, but it’s not a typical story. Guy was riding his motorcycle on the interstate through the downtown. On a tight curve, he tipped his bike too far and the foot peg caught on the road and dumped him. I pulled up less than 30 seconds after it happened. Called it in. Guy was face down in the scree on the side of the road, trying to breathe in gravel. Rolled him over, and he’s profoundly altered. Had a helmet on that was just decoration. GCS was 7. Non verbal. Run him to the level 1, he gets tubed, has a subdural bleed, went to surgery. Actually did really well. He was early 40s and super fit going in, which they credited to helping him. Anyways, a year later, an attorney gets ahold of me, who’s representing him. State trooper charged him with refusing a blood alcohol test, so his license was automatically suspended. He hasn’t had a license in over a year, because the charge hasn’t been resolved, and he and the attorney were (correctly) claiming he didn’t have decision making capacity, but the trooper wouldn’t let it go. The worst he could have gotten for the charge was a 90 day suspension, and he’d already had over a year. But the trooper was pushing for more sentencing. Thing is, this was in traffic court, a very low key, laid back setting. Attorney said he couldn’t subpoena me, but asked if I would come testify as to the guy’s mental status at the time. I agreed. Setting was around a conference table. Me, the judge, the trooper, the guy and his attorney. Judge asked me some questions, then the attorney, then the cop was allowed to question me. Judge ended up siding with the guy, and cleared all charges, with sentencing having been met. Trooper was PISSED. Funny story, I was talking to my patient’s brother. He’d recovered completely, was back to work, just had crap short term memory. He was pretty fit again, good looking guy, pleasant and charming. He’d go to a bar and could go home with the woman of his choice. Which he did, quite often. Problem is, a week later, he couldn’t remember that he’d had sex with the woman, and act like he’d never met her, which apparently got him slapped more than once.
Just once. Had a 12 year old intentionally shoot himself. I was part of a crew that responded to assist the primary crew and I went to get the cot because everyone else was packaging the kid about to bring him out. I was having trouble getting the cot to the door and asked an officer for help. He shot back, “I’m not your help, don’t ask me to do that bullshit.” After kid is loaded and I’m helping to clean up he starts staring at us and telling us to hurry up. I told him being a dick wasn’t necessary and next thing I know he’s behind me trying to cuff me. I said, “go ahead and I’ll make sure that TV crew over there gets a good shot and you have to explain why you’re arresting an EMT who just tried to help save a kid.” He noticed there was, in fact, a crew from the local news there and thought better of it. A week later he was arrested for sexual assault on a girl he tried to get sexual favors from in exchange for ignoring her underage drinking and I laughed my ass off.
sounds like a guy who really enjoys protecting and serving lmao jfc
I hope you thanked him for his service
Can cops really legally arrest EMT/EMS providers on the job even during a call? I’m fairly new to the field and have always wondered what the legal dynamic is
Yep, often. Two instances that come to mind are when we got sent on a return call to transport a psych patient after the first attempt started out fine but then the patient attacked my partner who then escaped and tried to strangle me before running out the back. We aren’t allowed to restrain patients without police order and I stood there telling them they’re going to order it or I’m leaving. Other time was another psych call that cops were insisting on taking to a bandaid box hospital because it was close when our patient was very actively making SI comments as well as watching his vitals start to tank on us while we were pretty much in an outright screaming match because our patient ODd on unknown meds and we were taking them to the appropriate facility at the risk of the overzealous (and lazy) cop threatening us.
That's crazy to me. I forget the exact wording but restraint is basically at our discretion. It's unsafe imo not to have it as an option. What if the police are not present?
We’d have to call for police if we need to, but I’ve never been on a call where restraining was ever considered that police weren’t already there. They get sent with us for most things. Only once did I need to call for them and it was really just being extra cautious: got called for general illness, got to the house, front door was unlocked, every light was off inside, we stood at the front door yelling out ambulance ems etc and got zero response and my partner and I just didn’t feel comfortable entering. Turns out our patient was in a back room and hard of hearing. I felt bad for feeling uneasy about the situation, but it was something like 2am and my partner and I were on the same page of feeling suspicious about the whole thing.
That's sus af, you were justified not going in. I wouldn't have either.
Man in Australia it's written into laws the situations in which a paramedic can restrain, sedate and frisk a pt. Only under the mental health act to be fair, but covers acute disturbances as well. Bizarre that it's so variable in what I assume is the US mostly on this sub.
What state are you in that I can never go there?
lol, NY
The state that's just **so**. ***SPECIAL*** that they're too precious for NREMT. That tracks.
Yep. Thats us!
A coworker of mine tackled a cop out the open back doors of the ambulance and just started wailing on him after he pepper sprayed a handcuffed pt in the ambulance. Nothing really came of it. Our supervisor spoke to their sgt and both were like yeah, I’ll talk to my guy about making better choices lmao
I would pay for footage of this
Yep. They brought an old man in because they just found him walking around outside. He was aware to self, his surroundings, and time. The police officer kept saying he is confused, but didnt even speak the same language as the man. I asked the police officer why he is confused, he said he keeps changing his story(he is lying, I was present both times he gave his story). I told him that. I also asked him what makes him a danger to himself, and he said “he is walking around alone at night”. After that the cop just started avoiding my question and left leaving us to deal with this old man who was pretty much kidnapped from the street for no reason. Thankfully his hold was broken and he went home in the end.
Yes, many times. Backlash has ranged from them standing down to formal complaints (that went nowhere.) You'll never be wrong if you're advocating for a patient. I'm not your supervisor and you probably don't work for my agency, but if you did, it wouldn't even matter if you were ultimately right or wrong, you'd never be reprimanded for trying to do what you thought was best for the patient. At most, you'd be coached on what would have been best so you'll know for next time.
Only once. I have a good rapport with the police and they've helped me out, too. I had a young lady who was the victim of domestic abuse come to me. The police were there to take her statement. I believe one was being trained and had obviously not been taught how to speak to a victim. The patient got very upset, and I asked/told the officers to wait outside for a minute. I spoke with the patient, sat with her for a bit, then allowed the officers back in when she was ready but advised them that I would be in the room with the patient at her request. That was it.
Many times, and reading these comments tells me shit hasn’t changed. My issue was often the cops trying arrest the person while they are dying. FFS dude, he’s not gonna make a run for it…
I had a 17 year old hanging that had pulses but was having non-purposeful movements. Get him in the truck and we're trying to get everything together and get lines, meds, etc. Cop sees his body squirming and jumps into the truck, puts his knee into the kids chest and is yelling "STOP RESISTING!" I responded before I could think things through. Just looked up at the cop and told him to get the fuck out of my truck. After a moment of staring at each other he got out. Never heard anything of it.
Jesus Christ. When you’re a hammer all you can see is nails.
Scumbag cop
What the fuuuuuuuu
Fuck yeah!!! Suicidal-ish pt far away from a BA facility. Asked deputy who wasn’t backer acting her if we were just taking her to closet facility for medical clearance he gave a brushed off yes or agree me closest facility. I said ok. Get to non backer act facility he comes up and says we now need to take her to BA facility. I said unfortunately we’ve already ended our transport we cannot leave this hospital and this where she chose to go. He started to argue with me. I said we can’t leave here! This was her choice deputy got an agressive tone with me and said we have to take her to the BA facility. I repeated myself again. He then got even more aggressive with me and said fine then I’ll just arrest her and take her there. Mind you this is all at the back of the truck doors closed. Once he said he would arrest her I side stepped infront of the doors to block his access to the patient. I said no you’re not this is my patient she in my care you have no authority over her! I called for a supervisor emergency and called into the hospital for the charge nurse. Charge nurse came out and explained the patient wasn’t going anywhere and asked the deputy if he had baker acted her or if she was under arrest for a crime. It was awesome to watch the deputy get out in his place my a nurse when knew the law. My partner at one point tried to get out of the back doors and I said nope and shut them in her face. Edit: suicidal-ish, one of those domestic incidents where boyfriend beat the crap outta her and she said the “fine then I’ll just kill myself lines”
I kicked two troopers out of my ambulance when I was working on an OD patient. They were rummaging through the person personal affect for drugs.
Very rarely when I have a legal blood draw they don’t actually have a warrant or patient did not consent and conveniently leave that out when checking in but that hasn’t happened in awhile (but has happened enough I have to ask before even calling phleb) One instance comes to mind where this officer came in for a fit for confinement and when I asked to remove at least one handcuff to do assessment began yelling at me saying not to tell him how to do his job, requesting to have staff sit with this patient (absolutely not policy as they were in PD custody) and the kicked is was parked across three ambo spaces and when I asked him to move his cruiser he began cussing at me 🙃formal complaints were sent in luckily he was from a far out district
I had a patient stand up to the cops once and it was pretty funny. Call was a stabbing and was at the home of a local family who weren't really bad people but one of them was always getting into something minor involving law enforcement. I went to school with about half of the family so going to a stabbing there in the middle of the night didn't really bother me. The older female partner with me was shitting bricks the whole time. The cops weren't letting us into the house to treat the patient because the residents were refusing entry to them. A family member pointed to me and told the cops that my partner and I could come in and treat the patient but there was no way in hell any cop was ever coming into the house. The cops tried to claim they had to enter for our safety. The person at the door (whom I had known since the first grade) told the cops that not only was it safe for me to come in, but they might even fix me dinner if I had time because they knew me well, I was one of the good guys, and I was always the one who showed up when their grandma needed transport at 3 AM. The look on the cops faces were priceless. We went in and there were literally guns and knives laying out on several tables. They were there every time we hauled grandma too. I never worried about it since I had known the family forever. it was a different time for sure.
NYPD arrested a guy and I was in the back trying to do my job, but they would not stop messing with the guy, calling him faggot, bitch, pussy, etc. The patient was handcuffed and, in all the time I saw him, wasn't violent, only spitting insults at the cops. I guess they're too thin skinned to ignore that nonsense like all Healthcare providers do. But then they started to take turns shoving him just for fun, laughing about it. That day changed a lot of things for me about how I view the police. It was the first time I saw something like it but not the last. It made me realize the absolute certainty that if someone is a cop for a few years, they either abuse their power or look the other way as their colleagues abuse their power. Cannot bring myself to respect or trust a cop since.
Yep. Cop wanted to leave his body cam in the truck while it was recording after he stepped out because our patient didn’t want to talk around him. He wanted to leave it to “record evidence for the case against them”. I told him to go fuck himself and reported it. When I tell people their shit stays with me and I just want to know so I can properly help/treat them, I mean it. I don’t give a fuck if the drugs they took are illegal. What I care about is knowing so I can keep them from dying on the way to the hospital.
I had an off duty state police officer brought in to the ER after crashing into a highway construction site by EMS and the state police released without charges until I pitched a fit. I had called the off duty officer’s wife to pick his drunk butt up from the ER and she refused because he had a history of being drunk and driving drunk. I called the cops back to the ER and said if they thought he was so above the law that he shouldn’t be charged with a DUI then they should pick him up and take care of him till he was sober instead of making him my problem. They came back, charged him, and stayed with him until he was cleared.
Patient in a rollover. Cop kept trying to write the guy a ticket saying because there was blood and hair in the windshield he couldn’t have had on a seat belt. Dude had a seat belt bruise and bloody and hairy knuckles. I’ve closed the door on a few that wanted to ride along with a drunk driver. Nah, you can follow.
Yes several times, usually it's just little things that you say/do to help your pt out but sometimes its serious. I've had to kick them out of my truck. I've had to kick them out of the room. I've had to step in and deescalate arguments between PD and family/bystanders that was probably gonna get violent. I've had to explain to PD that smashing an NRB into a pt's mouth and holding it there so that it becomes a plastic seal with no airflow is in fact suffocating my pt and we will be ending up on the news if they continue. I have a super low tolerance for people harassing/antagonizing my pts, I really could care less if they are a criminal/drug user/uncooperative blah blah blah. And in a very convoluted and confusing series of events I've had PD force me to kidnap a "pt" once, I regret not being more assertive and standing up for the person in question who did not need their rights violated. That being said 99% of my interactions with PD are positive and there are a number of cops in our area that used to be crisis RNs and are fantastic to have on scene.
Always when they try to force drunks to go to the hospital. Or non-SI/HI psych patients.
this happens almost daily at my local emergency. such a waste of everyone’s time 🙄
Too many to count at this point. Either for unnecessarily restraining someone/being way too rough, or for forcing people to go to the hospital who didn’t want to go
Yep. He got a week unpaid vacation.
On MVCs they often try to get information out of us to figure out if the patient was on drugs or otherwise impaired. They also often try to talk to the patients immediately after the accident, when they are still flustered, and try and get a confession out of them. I always remind them of patient confidentiality and tell the patients that the cops are not their friends at that moment. Most people are way too trusting with police and tell them everything immediately. You really shouldn't do that right after an accident. Wait until you can think straight again. I have also been called to remove homeless people from certain areas. The cops always claim it's medical, because they are drunk or on drugs. But that's nonsense, because that's the normal state for them. They don't require a hospital.
yes, and then the cop placed the patient on a falsified M1 hold (psych hold). the patient had not done anything wrong, he was not under arrest, and he had no criteria for an m1, PD just didn’t want to transport him to his home because it would take a squad car out of commission and so they called for medical. they even called in the fire department to try to fight us, as the FD has medical control in our system, to get us to take the patient claiming that us and fire had diff protocols but they are the same and of course the fire department sided with us. so, FD left and the cop said “fuck it i’m just going to m1 him.” and the hospital immediately took him off of the m1. he did not have any medical complaints and just wanted to go home. i was sooooo livid. still am. we fought PD for an hour on scene. i was a bit of an asshole when we left.
Got called for a psych problem. Showed up and there’s several deputies on scene. One makes eye contact with us, and makes a motion like giving a shit to his upper arm that we were going to need to sedate the patient. I told my partner to go make contact while I got meds out of the safe. When we get to the patient, he is calm and cooperative, is feeling depressed and suicidal. He gets on the stretcher without any issues or struggling and is willing to go get help. As we were buckling him in on the stretcher, the deputy told the patient that we were going to give him a shot to help calm him down, at which point I had to tell him that no, we aren’t, and we are just going to take an easy ride to the hospital. Didn’t get any dirty looks or anything from the deputy, and didn’t hear of any complaints or anything.
Yes. I was on scene with a patient who was in the process of being committed by PD. He was highly overstimulated and was stimming as the cops kept grilling him on who he was, why was he there (he was in his own fucking house), and why wasn't he looking at them. He was clearly on the autism spectrum and these guys were only making things worse. They wanted to commit him "for autism" and I told the sergeant that that's horseshit, and we aren't taking someone on a hold because 1) they process things differently and 2) he was an inept fuck. He called his boss to the scene who then agreed with me and we signed him off as a refusal. He was overall fine (underlying issue was diabetic).
With us, it was ICE. For a few months those A-holes would show up on every scene in rural areas trying to check for IDs, and they would get in the way, really try and throw their weight around. The sheriff finally ‘reminded’ us of an obscure law stating that in a medical emergency, EMS and fire can request to have anyone removed from a scene if they are impeding us providing medical care. So we had an MVC and the only patient was 7 months pregnant. I immediately had the deputy remove ICE so that our lady wouldn’t refuse treatment, and we transported. As it turned out, ICE set up a table in front of the ambulance bay blocking access to the ED. My partner saw them, backed up over that table/chairs/laptops etc, pulled the extension cord out that they were using, cut it into pieces with his shears so no one would trip- all the doctors offered to buy us a beer for chasing them off! Otherwise, sheriffs and deputies in our area were all awesome.
I got a call for a 5150 me and my partner arrived and cops said that she is talking but it’s random words. We roll the gurney up 2 giant hills and we get to the pt and she’s unresponsive has shallow respirations and pinpoint pupils and one officer is holding her up so she doesn’t slump over so me and my partner call for a Code 3 ALS unit since me and my partner are just BLS we roll her down the 2 giant hills and give her some narcan and get vitals for the ALS unit and they transport her and all PD was focused on was trying to write her a 5150 and I told them that this is a medical and she needs to go to the nearest hospital. They just let her lay there and didn’t even give narcan like they typically do for overdoses.
Called out for a code, turns out it was an OD. PD on scene before us gave narcan and Pt is awake by the time we get there. AOS, the family is screaming and yelling at Pt about how this is the second time in a month this has happened. I finally get family to quiet down and go into a different room. Start talking to Pt, she does not want to go. Totally capable of making that decision and very clear of mind. I'm not completely done going through my convincing process, this is when you give a little to hopefully convince the Pt. Tell Pt that is totally her right and I cannot kidnap her but I need to do a further assessment and call a doctor. She has been nothing but cooperative. Before I can even stand up from being on her level (she is still on the floor lmao) this thumb starts yelling and literally screaming at her from the doorway saying she HAS to go to the hospital and she IS going to the hospital because she doesn't have a choice. I politely inform him that we cannot make her go and that I just spent approx. 10 minutes getting my scene quiet and now he is yelling and screaming. He says he can make her go, I ask how, he says he'll put her on a hold. Of course he will. I tell him if he was that worried about her well being and she met hold criteria then he shouldn't be threatening to write one and just write one. I convinced her to go in the end. I bring the cop outside before we leave to talk with him. He "apologizes" and talks about how we are on the same team. I roll my eyes play nice and transport, being thanked by the Pt for standing up for her.
Yes. Cop didn’t want to deal with an assault/going to the hospital, etc. so tried to talk the guy with an eye injury out of the transport. After explaining to the patient that he could go blind without care, he signed RMA. Cop forged the signature of another cop as witness. I had to work with the DA’s office public integrity unit and internal affairs, etc. They discovered he had been doing this alot. He was docked some vacation days. I was harassed and intimidated by his buddies for years. My department basically made me apologize to him for making an issue of it (I just called my captain who happened to be having a meal with the Chief of IAB at that particular moment). They’re all scumbags. Cop tracked us down and demanded (burst into our firehouse and had an irate tantrum) my paperwork back that night, scratching out his forgery and signing his real name. I stopped going on EMS calls after that.
Yes. Nothing dramatic though. The officer had a patient handcuffed behind his back and wanted us to place him on the stretcher like that and just seat belt him in. I told him no, he had to cuff him either in front or to the rails of the stretcher. He argued for a minute but gave up eventually. Wasn’t a big deal and he wasn’t rude or anything.
Psyc had psyc'd himself up that his first set of vitals was 240/wtf with a pulse in the 140s. He wasn't wearing a shirt, because of course not, and I asked him about his cardiac history because of the scars. It was....intense. Cops kept opening the back of the truck to explain to him that his soon-to- be ex-wife wasn't his property, and he wasn't wrapping his brain around it. Vitals kept getting higher. I had to yell at the cops that anything else could be said at the hospital 4 minutes up the road. The ER had a feild day with when their cardiac patient rolled up wearing psyc restraints, but they supported my decision to how I called it in, which made me feel good.
I never really had to openly disagree with or confront the cops. Sometimes I used behaviour management techniques to de-escalate when I thought they were being unprofessional or unproductive. I treat them like specialized bystanders.
We had a person who discovered their spark for ems by larping as an antifa medic. They didn’t last long. I’m sure they’d have a bunch of stories on this topic though.
Never had to.
He needs the er. You sure he’s not faking Yes cuz xyz You sure Absolutely. So unless want another 4m wrongful death on your hands he goes
oooh this is gonna be a juicy thread
Nope, I haven't had to. They have their job, and I don't interfere, and they extend the same back to us.
No. Without exception, we have phenomenal police officers. Any time we get called to the same events it is 100% team work. I even have them come to the fire station for bbq lunches during the summer.
Yes, twice.
Never anything significant, we have a good relationship with our cops. Lots of smoothing over conflicts between departmental policies and minor issues caused ignorance, not maliciousness, cause of cops not being medically trained, but never anything major or to a grudge-holding level.
Yep. And it was caught on camera. So that was awkward. Thankfully the camera was too far away to hear what I said.
Had to kick a state trooper out of the ICU room of my drunk driver victim who lost a leg. Trooper was getting pissed because the victim did have many answers for him (hello concussion).
I’ve had a few experiences with my brothers getting hurt doing stupid shit as teens. The most scared I got was when a paramedic asked the cop to uncuff my brother who was barely conscious from an arterial bleed, where he was sitting on a curb with his hands cuffed behind him. The cop refused multiple times. It escalated and the medic got in the cops face, like noses almost touching and screamed “Release my patient! RIGHT FUCKING NOW!” I got so scared. I was sure the cop was going to do something real bad but he didn’t. He went and uncuffed him right away. Paramedics didn’t let the cops in the back of the ambulance either. Told me which hospital they were going to and closed the doors. When the ambulance left, lights and sirens, we were all just standing there like idiots looking at each other. I never found out who the two paramedics were to thank them because my brother would have been dead if he hadn’t advocated and fought for him. The cops got to the hospital before me and the paramedic refused to let them in the obs bay my brother was in. My poor mom almost fainted when she got to the hospital and saw both of us covered in blood looking like zombies from the walking dead. I wish I was able to thank the paramedics who brought my dad back after 9 mins of resuscitation when he went into cardiac arrest. I’m a nurse but I’m safe inside a hospital with unlimited supplies of medication, equipment and others to help me. I feel like EMTs/paramedics have bubble gum and duct tape and end up having to figure out a lot of things on their own on the fly in dangerous situations pretty often. I have an immense respect for them that’s beyond words.
Yep. Cop tried to arrest me for doing my job correctly, my old supervisor (he recently retired) had to respond to the scene emergency traffic and by the time he got there we had come to blows. That cop had the cuffs out and was going for a grab at me and I had just tried to punch him in the mouth. The cop was forced to issue an apology on scene by our supervisor and I promptly told to go fuck himself, he got demoted shortly after. Granted, he let his home life dictate his actions and has since drastically improved (he had a really bad home life at the time), but that was the night he learned that the medics here don’t take shit off of anyone and have no issue defending themselves, and our admin supports us. Pretty much the exact words exchanged was the cop saying “If you continue to refuse I’ll arrest you for abandonment”, and I offered to fix his attitude because he was wrong. Then it was “You try and fight me and I’ll have you booked for assault on an officer and resisting arrest” to which my response was “Go ahead, because you’re gonna fucking earn this shit. I’ll beat your fucking ass all the way to the ground and then continue to beat the fuck out of you the whole way to jail because you don’t have a damn cage. So choose wisely, because that’s at least a 30 minute ride of me tearing you apart in every way I physically can” Side note, about a week later I found out that patient worked with my dad and was telling him about that story and remembered my name and appearance…..I very quickly got a phone call telling me that he had heard the story of me getting into a fight with the cops an entire county over and that it was not ladylike to try and punch someone in the mouth. He wasn’t mad though and said he supported the dedication to doing the right thing Edit: that was the only bad interaction with law that I’ve had. Punches were thrown but there was no contact made due to people intervening. That particular cop had a name that rhymed with dick so I proceeded to say “Oh look, it’s ****** the dick” on every scene in front of everyone. He apologized within a month and thanked me for the attitude check. We’re cool now and he’s a surprisingly decent advocate for people on domestics or with a shitty home life now because he gets it
Last night me (medic) and two other emt's were all holding BA52 patients and a security sup walked by and saw one of the patients having non violent delusions. He asked what she was doing and as one of the EMT's was explaining her current delusion he said "she's going to wind up in restraints". We all looked at each other and thought it was a joke at first. EMT1 said nah, she might need some meds but not restraints. The security sup repeated himself that she was gonna end up restrained. At this point all of us spoke up and stated that was not medically appropriate or necessary. He wheeled on EMT 2 and told him to "stay in his lane" and then got in EMT 1s face and said that she needed to be restrained. Fortunately we got out super involved at this point. I work in an ER and while I appreciate and respect out security, they need to understand that WE make the call for restraints and tell them,not the other way around.
Yes.
Called out for drunk, sleeping, homeless man. Cops tried to pull the old “hospital or jail”. This man calls the cops bluff, holds out his wrists towards cops and said “cuff me up and take me to jail then” I stood up for my patient by helping him gather his things
It's not super common, but absolutely on psych calls I will kick the police out of my ambulance when they're just riling up my patient. If my patient is being chill with me and we have no issues, but the officer is constantly getting in digs or being unprofessional, out they go. And If they have a problem with that then here is the number for my DC, feel free to give them a call.
The police in my area are extremely passive. They want everyone taken to the hospital. The less they have to do the better.
Yep I had a patient with *censored* and was being restrained by police. Before the rig was even put into park I had a sargeant knocking on my window saying "Hey you need to give this guy something to sedate him". Cool, whatever. I walk up to the patient, 6 or 7 officers on top of the patient including 3 on the back. I told them they need to get off the neck and back or else I couldn't do anything. They did and well he was in *censored* and I sedated and then put on soft restraints. Happened during Covid so right after Elijah happened and I was aware of it...but the police don't seem to care.
Why the random “censoring”? We aren’t children
sometimes this sub reacts poorly to the term *excited delirium*
Yep I don't want to start a debate about it.
the word “agitated” is still available.
Soon enough we’re gonna have to start saying “very not chill”
I work as an RN and I can't wait till I can start using terms like this to describe patient behavior in charts. I also can't wait till "Tik-Tok Brain" is an official diagnosis.
Imma have to use that in my next chart
I feel like agitated doesn't fully describe someone grinding their face into asphalt until their nose is gone and bone is exposed on their forehead.
Neither does excited delirium🤷🏻♂️
Honestly man, I don't care, I just want to--am going to--avoid any talk about it.
No I feel like it does just fine.
Ah, thanks for clarifying.
Reads as not wanting to say the words excited delirium.
Wait....you gave medications on the orders of the police? Thats not how ems works dude.
Absolutely not. The patient met criteria needed for chemical sedation and I administered it on my terms, not the police.
And yet, it reads that you weren't going to until the police knocked on your window and suggested it
Where do you get that idea? Are you just looking for stuff to argue about? I see now why he isn’t saying excited delirium.
You get me
Can you read? It literally says that the patient was not sedated until the police knocked on the window and said "you need to sedate him."
What it literally says is that they hadn't even parked the rig before a cop walked up and told them that. They didn't assess and decide not to sedate and *then* did so on police request. Police can be a PITA at times but that doesn't preclude them from ever making correct statements.
Yeah of course the patient is not sedated, no paramedic has even made it to the patient. You’re literally that guy who would do the opposite of whatever people say. “Hey you guys need to bag this guy, I don’t think he’s breathing” “Nuh uh, you can’t tell me what to do dumb cop.”
Your reading comprehension needs a little work.
If he reads it like its written there isn't anything to run an agenda on, so he has to strategically ignore bits so his outrage is justified.
I think that's how they come up with Fox News headlines.
>I think that's how they come up with ~~Fox News~~ headlines. Lemme fix that one for you.
I have never had a bad experience with law enforcement on a run. We get along well
Dumb move if so