Scott’s Blog

We had a very interesting discussion in my EMT Class this evening about some different ethical dilemmas someone could face as an EMT.  In the first situation you are out to dinner at a restaurant and a child sitting at a table next to you stops breathing and goes unconscious.  You have no protective gear, and neither does the restaurant.  You would be forced into doing mouth-to-mouth breathing, and it is very possible that you can catch something from the child.  What do you do?  Do you risk it anyway in an attempt to save the childs life, or do you call 911 and wait for someone to arrive?

Average EMS response times in my area are probably around 7 to 10 minutes.  Which is long enough to do some damage to an oxygen deprived brain.  Maybe someone gets there sooner, maybe they don’t.  It’s possible that you could coach the child’s parents through rescue breathing while you do chest compressions (our class was covering CPR), but the parent’s may be to hysterical to do it properly.  You could possibly use a napkin or a table cloth as a protective barrier, but those are designed to absorb and may increase the chance for body substance exchange, they also aren’t the greatest devices to help with ventillation.  It really comes down to whether or not I would risk becoming contaminated to save a childs life, and it may sound insensitive but I really don’t know what I would do.  One of my biggest fears is catching something from a patient.  There are so many different diseases out there and it’s really scary.

The second situation we talked about was being the first to arrive at the scene of a car accident.  The car is on fire and there is someone trapped inside, Fire Department is on the way but by the time they get there it will be too late for the person trapped inside.  It is probably important to note that as far as my EMT training is concerned my safety come first.  I should not do anything without ensuring that I am not in harms way.  When we talked about this though I had a different reaction than I did about the first situation.  I would almost definitely put on whatever safety gear I had (and we really have nothing on the ambulance to deal with a fire) and I would try to get that person out.  I know there is a chance that at any minute the gas tank could explode and I would be in serious danger, but I could not sit by and watch the car burn, I couldn’t listen to the person.

Everyone in the class seemed to have their own take on it, one of them had no problem doing mouth-to-mouth to the child, but wouldn’t go near the car.  I really wonder what this says, if anything, about the kind of EMTs we are.