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Thread: Dangerous Precedent: Paramedics to no longer wait and stage during active-shooter

  1. #61
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    To say that EMS need to stand by during some type of incident is absurd. Yes, if you do not have the training to make tactical decisions in a high stress situation, you need to stay in the ambulance. However, like anything else, training and exposure is what is needed. A medic on a swat/srt team, can only benefit said situation. If we can get people trained, then good things will come of it. The world is constantly adapting, as are threats, and the way situations need to be handled. We must adapt, and change, as the need arises, or better yet. Before the need arises. Why continue to stay behind the 8-ball all the time? Bottom line, it comes down to training. I challenge anyone to find an instance where a trained medic on a tactical team has been a detriment to the team, situation, outcome, patients, or anyone else around them. The military, and federal LE agencies have been using medics for sometime now. Time for state and local agencies to get on board and stop worrying about liability, bureaucracy, and all the other BS that comes with trying to get something useful done for once.

  2. #62
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jmedic_ View Post
    To say that EMS need to stand by during some type of incident is absurd. Yes, if you do not have the training to make tactical decisions in a high stress situation, you need to stay in the ambulance. However, like anything else, training and exposure is what is needed. A medic on a swat/srt team, can only benefit said situation. If we can get people trained, then good things will come of it. The world is constantly adapting, as are threats, and the way situations need to be handled. We must adapt, and change, as the need arises, or better yet. Before the need arises. Why continue to stay behind the 8-ball all the time? Bottom line, it comes down to training. I challenge anyone to find an instance where a trained medic on a tactical team has been a detriment to the team, situation, outcome, patients, or anyone else around them. The military, and federal LE agencies have been using medics for sometime now. Time for state and local agencies to get on board and stop worrying about liability, bureaucracy, and all the other BS that comes with trying to get something useful done for once.
    If the EMS personnel in question are street paramedics that aren't tactically trained and/or haven't worked with that particular Tactical Team then they absolutely need to stand by out on the edge of the operation and wait for the scene to be deemed safe by the SWAT personnel. Tactically trained paramedics that work and train with that particular SWAT team, however, are a distinct asset to the team. That's a concept that's more than two decades old.

  3. #63
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hmac View Post
    If the EMS personnel in question are street paramedics that aren't tactically trained and/or haven't worked with that particular Tactical Team then they absolutely need to stand by out on the edge of the operation and wait for the scene to be deemed safe by the SWAT personnel. Tactically trained paramedics that work and train with that particular SWAT team, however, are a distinct asset to the team. That's a concept that's more than two decades old.
    Which is exactly what I said in my previous post.... If they are trained. And yes, while the concept is decades old there is still a great lack of tactical medics, and they not implemented in a lot of places.

  4. #64
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    Do tac trained medics carry weapons? Or do SWAT members stay and cover them when they stop and treat?

  5. #65
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    Quote Originally Posted by voiceofreason View Post
    Do tac trained medics carry weapons? Or do SWAT members stay and cover them when they stop and treat?
    The term "tac medic" has become broadly applied and training as well as duties vary by agency and locale. In my instance the position is an integral part of the team, "stack" where being a medic is a somewhat secondary skill set, just as there are team snipers, breachers, scouts and so on. I have been on the team for 11 years, attended basic SWAT (P.O.S.T. Certified) in 2006, and attended numerous agency sponsored courses for weapons use, CQB, and tactical medicine. The position requires attendance of all training days and drills, and biannual qualifications of physical and shooting skills.

    You will find many positions where medics such as myself are armed entry team members and you will find tactical response medics that are not armed however respond into a more "sanitized" scene after a primary unit clears the area of threats.

  6. #66
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    It varies by agency. On our team back in the early days of Tactical EMS, Medics were volunteers...actual EMT-P trained as tactical medics. We provided Advanced Life Support under the license of an MD as Medical Director. We worked in the inner perimeter and as part of the entry team. We were armed and armored. We qualified twice a year on all weapons used by the team, everything from the MP5's and M16s to the sniper rifles, to the M79 grenade launcher as well as our personal weapons. We were not sworn and did no law enforcement. We were armed entirely for self protection, as allowed by state law.

  7. #67
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hmac View Post
    "Inside the inner perimeter". That's where you want Tactical Paramedics. If the medics have to wait for the cops to bring the wounded out to them then that's a major fail. Anybody remember the images from Waco of the FBI bringing out their dead and wounded on the hoods of cars after the whole thing was over? That episode more than any other in civilian EMS was the stimulus for the Tactical Paramedic concept and has driven it ever since. Medics do their job, cops do theirs. Unless you happen to have the rare circumstance that a cop, or group of cops are also EMT-P's, then there needs to be a distinction between cops and medics. I'm talking about actual Paramedics...guys who can do advanced life support in the field...start IVs, give meds etc. If not paramedics, then we're just talking about cops with a basic first aid kit.

    Have non-SWAT cops guarding me? No thanks. I'm confident that I do more firearms self-defense training and am more capable of protecting myself than your average cop is of protecting me.

    Untrained personnel shouldn't be doing law enforcement. They're not trained for it, and pose a huge liability risk. OTOH, anybody inside the inner perimeter is at much higher risk than the average guy on the street with a CCW, and those paramedics ought to have at least the same rights of self-defense as any other citizen.


    .
    Considering most mass killings occur in weapon free zones....

  8. #68
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    Outstanding points- I believe out here in SoCal, AMR American Medical Response Ambulances also have Tactical EMTs (not Paramedics per se) who are trained to respond with a tactical team- not in an entry capacity, but more as an outside perimeter triage response element.

    The basic SWAT School graduated EMT-Ps who serve on Tactical teams are the only actual paramedics trained to accompany SWAT entry elements into a situation where field trauma care might be needed. There are team Physicians also who serve as Medical Drs on the entry team as their services might be needed and their deployment dictated by the given call out.

    What I think might be another asset that could be tapped to augment the current tactical medical response element is the armed and ballistically suited up Arson Investigators who are more than capable of defending other medical, paramedic, or Medical technicians into the outer perimeter tactical situation, and actually be an asset to the tactical package.

    It all seems to work out as long as common sense prevails amongst those who are deciding how best to save life ves with.

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