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Ambulances and cop cars ready to rumble
But not everyone is raving about the Rumbler. Citizens Coalition Against Noise Pollution (they'd prefer you call them Noise Off) says the device creates an "ear splitting sound" and notes the company's own marketing materials warn "sirens and speakers may cause hearing damage." When urging city councils to reject the Rumbler, Noise Off explains that regular exposure to low frequencies can cause hearing loss, sleep deprivation, chronic fatigue, anxiety, hostility, depression and hypertension. None of those are qualities you want in emergency service professionals.
Public reaction to the Rumbler has been mixed, with some drivers complaining it's annoying.
By Dave Demerjian
This was a comment from a subsequent post on the site from "alphanumeric" | Oct 2, 2008 12:02:36 PM
Good lord, I remember hearing about a much simpler solution way back in the eighties, what it was was an IR sending unit installed in all emergency vehicles, that would broadcast up to six city blocks away.
The reason it never took off is because it required co-operation from detroit and othe car manufacturers to put in an IR reciever in all makes and models of cars that would activate a simple light on the dash to gain a motorists' attention to let them know an emergency vehicle was somewhere nearby, and to pull over to the side of the road. The cost of the recieving unit? At the time $100.00.
The same technology could still be implemenmted today and could be set up to overide a persons stereo, and broadcast over the vehicles own speaker system as well as give directional indication as to where the emergency vehicle is coming from. But not everyone is raving about the Rumbler. Citizens Coalition Against Noise Pollution (they'd prefer you call them Noise Off) ... more -
Woman dies after ambulance delayed by sat nav fault
East Midlands Ambulance Service has apologised for the delay in getting a seriously ill patient to hospital after the vehicle's sat nav packed up, and the driver (who was not from the area) got lost.
21-year-old Kay Gadsby, who had serious long-term health problems after becoming the first child ever to undergo a combined heart and kidney transplant 10 years ago, was collected by an ambulance within 15 minutes when she collapsed at her home, but the journey to hospital that should have taken 40 minutes took over an hour because of the sat nav's and then the driver's error.
The Telegraph reports that doctors do not believe that the delay contributed to Miss Gadsby's death, but her family said they would "never know".
Are we over-reliant on technology? Why are sat navs and similar gadgets replacing a good old map and a bit of local knowledge? And what does that mean for the kinds of skills that we're learning - and losing? If we don't need to do the jobs that technology (when its working) does for us, will we lose the ability completely? East Midlands Ambulance Service has apologised for the delay in getting a seriously ill patient to hospital after the vehicle's s... more -
NYC considers “organ removal” ambulance
"Saving the living has always been the No. 1 priority for a New York City ambulance crew. But a select group of paramedics may soon have a different task altogether: saving the dead. The city is considering creating a special ambulance whose crew would rush to collect the newly deceased and preserve the body so that the organs might be taken for transplant.
The "rapid-organ-recovery ambulance," still in the early planning stages, could raise a host of ethical questions and strike some families as ghoulish. But top medical officials in the Fire Department and Bellevue Hospital say it has the potential to save hundreds of lives.
Generally in the U.S., only people who die at hospitals are used as organ donors, because doctors are on hand with life-support machinery and other equipment to preserve the organs and remove them before they spoil. Surgeons have only a few critical hours before kidneys, livers and other body parts suffer damage that renders them unusable.
Dr. Lewis Goldfrank, the director of emergency medicine at Bellevue, said the ambulance project could spark an "amazing transformation" by substantially increasing the pool of donors. The system would be one of the first of its kind in the U.S., although similar ambulances have operated successfully in parts of Europe, he said.
The transplant ambulance would turn up at the scene of a death mere minutes after regular paramedics ceased efforts to resuscitate a patient. The team would begin work almost immediately, administering drugs and performing chest compressions intended to keep the organs viable.
Sometimes, those steps would be taken before getting approval from a relative and without knowledge of the departed's wishes regarding organ donation.
Any organ removals would be done at the hospital only. And no organs would be removed without getting the family's express consent.
But experts in medical and legal ethics said they still see potential for trouble.
"Starting this process without knowing whether the decedent wanted to be a donor could be a problem," said Maxwell Mehlman, director of the Law-Medicine Center at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
Distraught relatives could be unnerved by the site of a transplant team arriving so soon after a death. Some might have a religious objection to organ donation, and be enraged to learn that a body had been moved and injected with fluids.
Other families might also - rightly or wrongly - question whether the paramedics curtailed their lifesaving efforts because a patient had valuable organs.
"A lot of people don't trust the medical system to begin with, and in the city, you have additional class and race issues to deal with," said Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. "I could very easily see a family saying, 'If it was a white, rich person, that person would have been saved. But instead you've sent the meat wagon.'"
Doctors working on developing a pilot program say they realize the sensitivity of the issue and are building precautions into the system, which would start with just one ambulance."
By David B Caruso
Associated Press Writer "Saving the living has always been the No. 1 priority for a New York City ambulance crew. But a select group of paramedics may so... more -
Patient Steals Ambulance
Denver-
Mickey Stevenson Terry was being held at the hospital on a "unstable mental health hold." After he was released, Terry jumped into an awaiting ambulance and took it for a high-speed chase. Still not very mentally stable I suppose. Denver- ... more -
U.S. Customs delays ambulance at border
"An ambulance rushing a heart attack victim to Detroit from a Windsor hospital ill-equipped to perform life-saving surgery was stopped for secondary inspection Monday by U.S. Customs, despite the fact it carried a man fighting for his life.
"Rick Laporte, 49 -- who twice had been brought back to life with defibrillators -- was being rushed across the border when a U.S. border guard ignored protocol at the Detroit portion of the tunnel and forced the ambulance -- with siren and lights flashing -- to pull over."
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This is unconscionable and insane. It is taking "security" much too far. It would seem that the USA is taking its cues from Israel - not that Canada is the USA's equivalent of the Gaza Strip or the West Bank, of course, but still... "An ambulance rushing a heart attack victim to Detroit from a Windsor hospital ill-equipped to perform life-saving surgery was st... more -
Mans body discovered in out of service ambulance
Homicide is suspected, and the Ambulance was being used as a plumbing truck.
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