You are about to head out on a call for a 65-year old man who is reported to be suffering from sudden respiratory distress. Few details are known about this man’s medical history, so you aren’t entirely sure what you are about to encounter. You grab your First-In bag, knowing that your airway management tools make you well prepared for any airway emergency.

Every nurse working in a hospital knows to expect the unexpected. Just when the unit seems calm, your shift is well-staffed, and your patients are stable, it can turn on a dime: Your doctor decides he wants STAT blood work on one patient, your other patient’s IV infiltrates, and an admission comes in from the emergency room. Meanwhile, a code is called in the waiting room for a visitor that suddenly collapsed and is not breathing.

 

Suction-Assisted Laryngoscopy and Airway Decontamination, better known as the SALAD technique, can potentially lower morbidities and mortality associated with aspiration and related issues in emergency situations by using aggressive suction to quickly clear the airway before intubation. But a recent simulation suggests the technique can potentially benefit first responders, as well. 

Foreseeable Disasters can come in all shapes and sizes, from a power failure that affects only your facility to an earthquake that sends hundreds of casualties to your emergency department.

Emergency medical responders are responsible for saving lives every day. Their knowledge and skills enable them to quickly assess and treat patients who may be unconscious, unable to communicate or located in remote terrain.

Portable suction is not utilized in the field on every call, and not on an everyday basis. However, when it is needed, it can make the difference between a patient that leaves the hospital and one who dies of aspiration pneumonia after a successful resuscitation.

 

The ramifications and unintended consequences stemming from COVID-19 continue to reverberate throughout the population.

 

EMTs deal with emergencies every day, so it’s easy to feel like emergency preparedness is baked into the job and become complacent. 

 

Maybe your training sessions start to feel like mundane drills, until you’re suddenly hit with an experience you were unprepared for—whether it’s transporting a combative patient, managing care in a mass casualty scenario, or just treating a patient in the dead of winter and having to face the elements. 

 

Emergency preparedness begins with the right training, and the right training is not easy or orderly. It prepares you to deal with the real-world scenarios you’re likely to encounter, in all of their messy, complex ugliness. Here are five EMT training scenarios that actually increase emergency preparedness:

The quality of care you are able to provide patients is inseparable from the quality of the devices you have available. After all, it doesn’t matter how knowledgeable you are about choking if you can’t clear a patient’s airway. 

 

Although there are many elements of emergency situations that you cannot change, you should ensure you have the right medical devices to deal with a wide range of emergencies to reduce the risk of care delay deaths. Here are the medical devices every EMT should have. 

Tactical medicine, sometimes called SWAT medicine, is a high stakes branch of emergency medical services (EMS) that caters to the needs of law enforcement, the military, and other first responders. If your organization serves the general public, then you might think that tactical medical care is well outside of your wheelhouse. 

 

The reality is much different. The rate of mass shootings—and the number of casualties—is steadily rising. Political turmoil always has the potential to turn violent. And in 2017 alone, there were nearly 15,000 gun-related homicides in the United States, with more than 100 due to mass shootings. 

 

Sooner or later, you will encounter a tactical medical scenario. That’s why you need to be prepared with a portable tactical medical bag that keeps you and your patients safe.