Safety Questions

     Question: What do you do when a crew questions the safety of your agency's work environment because you don't use self-lifting cots? You run a small agency. The expense of these tools would be overwhelming for you right now, but there are ways to finance them. Your biggest worry is honestly the weight of those things. Several services around you have already purchased them, and your crew's perception is, you're just too stingy to spend the money. Your service is a primary 9-1-1 ALS provider, and more than half of your calls are not bedside-to-bedside in nature.

     Answer: If you don't care deeply about the safety of your crews, you'll get a lot more than occasional questions from them. In fact, use this article as a reminder to ask them if they feel safe. Do that often. Welcome their questions, and routinely act on issues they identify. Make sure people never wonder about your commitment to their safety.

     But make no mistake: To say that self-lifting cots are the answer to lifting injuries would be an oversimplification. The current models weigh between 140 and 160 lbs., plus IV poles and everything else you normally need attached to them. The capacity to lift patients mechanically is a powerful aid when you run transfers all day on hard, level surfaces, but it's not much help in a cornfield, when you have to carry that extra weight—especially if you don't have plenty of first responders.

     Self-lifters are also not a substitute for mandatory lift tests for new employees. (There are plenty of smart, caring people who simply don't have the physical strength to do what EMTs do every day.) Nor do they replace the need for solid training (for your folks and your first responders), good stair chairs or adequate staffing.

     Now, those are some safety questions you should be asking yourself.

Thom Dick has been involved in EMS for 37 years, 23 of them as a full-time EMT and paramedic in San Diego County. He is the quality care coordinator for Platte Valley Ambulance Service, a community-owned, hospital-based 9-1-1 provider in Brighton, CO. Thom is also a member of EMS Magazine's editorial advisory board. Reach him at boxcar_414@yahoo.com.