Wake up, Deputy....time to go do some work now.

Cops have about as much understanding of what we do as the man in the moon. They come off as a rather self centered bunch who are quite used to getting their way. I guess it comes with the police powers, the badge, the gun....they assume that they are always the ones "in charge". We, at EMS, are quite often at the short end of the stick when it comes to Law Enforcement. Not that they care, but I wish they'd at least be "indoctrinated" on the workload we juggle and how much bullshit they could keep off our plate.

We are not a damned "rolling free clinic". We don't issue clean bills of health. We don't have an Xray machine, CT, or laboratory on board. We aren't Psychiatrists. We aren't ass wipers. We're not gonna transport that drunk for you just because he shit himself and you don't want to put him in your car. Every day....and I mean EVERY DAY we get multiple requests from the Sheriff's Department, Police Department, and Highway Patrol requesting that we respond to a patient with no legitimate medical complaint but they just want us to "CHECK THEM OUT"....or "My officer says she's a little 'shaken up'". Shaken up?? Check them out?? What the hell do they want us to do, give them a 72 point maintenance inspection? These guys are medics not mechanics! All this crap could be solved with one simple question..."Do you want an ambulance to take you to the hospital?....You don't know right now?....OK, lemme know when you do."

We have to prioritize calls based on the medical need and severity of the patient's condition. We have to do this so that we can legally account for the need to divert an ambulance to a higher priority call. It sounds simple but you gotta have a system in place that legitimizes the need to divert from the stumped toe to the chest pain. Law Enforcement very rarely gives us enough information to even code the call much less give it the proper determinant for prioritization. I don't know if it's laziness on the officer's part or if it's laziness on the dispatcher's part but they don't seem to give a rat's ass that we have a job to do too. The following exchange is extremely common:


Me: "Rescue...go ahead."

Sheriff's Department: "Yeah, We need you guys to go to Pace and Palafox."

Me: "What's going on there?"

Sheriff's Department: "I got an officer out with a black male subject there who needs an ambulance."

Me: "What's wrong with him?"

Sheriff's Department: "I don't know, he just said to send EMS."

Me: "Can you ask him 'why'"?

Sheriff's Department: "(sigh)...hang on!...Car 223.....EMS wants to know why they're needed.......Copy....He says the patient's bleeding."

Me: "Bleeding from where, what happened?"

Sheriff's Department: "(bigger sigh)....Car 223....Do you have any further information for EMS?.....10-4....He doesn't have any further information."

Me: "That's not what I asked....I need to know if he's conscious?...if he's breathing?....if he's alert?...how was he injured?...we're running several calls right now and I may need to divert an ambulance.

Sheriff's Department: "(even bigger sigh...mumbles under breath) Lemme call you back."

Me: "*$&% #^&#!~"

This is an Unknown Problem...Bravo response (priority 3) because of some lazy freakin' police work! As often as we work with these other agencies, you'd think we'd have a decent working relationship with them by now. That ain't the case. Last week I had an ambulance crew who's patient decided that he wanted to fight. They had their hands full and called on the radio for the Sheriff's Office, 10-18 (local vernacular for emergency response). I made that request for them. A few minutes later, one of my call takers says "I got the Sheriff's Department on the line wanting to know why we need them to respond." I picked up the phone and said (for the second time) "My crew has a patient who's fighting them, they need some help." The dispatcher tells me that her Sergeant's asking for more information. WTF!? "I don't have any more information for you....my crew's in a fight with a patient and they need help....what the hell else do you need to know??" This is all very typical of the relationship we have with our friendly local constabulary.

It's easy, and perhaps unfair, for me to form the opinion that alot of cops are just damned lazy. The extra work load that Law Enforcement puts on us out of ignorance or laziness can be a tremendous burden...not only because it costs the county taxpayers alot of damned money to send an ambulance somewhere and on BS calls those costs are never recovered, and not only because of the work it creates for the medics who have to fill out Patient care forms and refusals and administrative personnel who have to process that paperwork, not only because of the extra work it creates in EMS dispatch (which is already an extremely busy place because it happens to be the primary answering point for 9-1-1 in our county)....but because we don't have as many ambulances as they do officers. We have to maintain a coverage for the county and very often, these cops are robbing ambulances from people who legitimately need them. I hate dealing with them. They are rarely accommodating and often rude. That's bad enough, but when it impacts the level of care we're able to provide to other patients, somebody ought to have the ability and authority to put a stop to it.

Are we the only EMS agency who has such a shitty working relationship with local law enforcement?