Near-Miss Website Shares EMS Incidents
A brush with death is unforgettable. Now a website backed by the International Association of Fire Chiefs aims to make it educational.
For a little over a year, firefighters all over the country have been logging on to FirefighterNearMiss.com and recording mistakes and problems that happen on the job that could have resulted in injury or death.
Now officials want to hear from EMS workers as well.
"We want EMS workers to know it's available," said Project Manager John Tippet.
Since the site's inception, many EMS personnel have already logged on. A search through posted near-miss reports can uncover stories about patients who go on violent rampages, sleep-taxed workers who fall asleep at the wheel, or medics who are left to work alone on a major highway.
But the IAFC is now working to get more.
Tippett says there are over 1,200 near-miss reports on the site already, with EMS-related events making up a little less than 400 of those.
He says many EMS workers may not know about the site, or they may think it is just for firefighters. But, the IAFC wants to remedy that.
"We are going to change the face of the website so that it is more representative," Tippett said.
The IAFC completed a recently-published firefighter safety report based on experiences found on the website. He says there is no reason why the same can't be done for EMS workers.
That's because, according to Tippett, near-miss events in firefighting and emergency rescue share many of the same contributing factors: ineffective communications, loss of situational awareness and lapses in decision-making.
Tippett says first responders have been talking about their near-miss experiences for years.
"This has been going on in the emergency services field for a long time," he said. But the website gives those stories permanence, and provides opportunities to learn so that those mistakes can be evaluated and, perhaps, procedures can be changed.
And, according to Tippet, many of the factors that contribute to a near-miss can be accurately identified and eliminated.
It is not hard to submit a near-miss report. It happens like this: an EMS worker composes a summery of a near-miss event. Then, he or she provides details like age, years of experience, rank and department type. There is also a place for the writer to summarize what the event taught them.
The identity of the person submitting the report is not reported on the website, but users are given the option of leaving a name and contact number so that someone from the site's team of reviewers can contact the individual to clarify details.
One report details what happened when a patent attacked one of her rescuers.
It happened when a crew of EMT/firefighters and paramedic/firefighters responded to a person who had attempted suicide. The person did not have life-threatening injuries, and so, was not transported to the hospital by stretcher. Instead, she was seat-belted into a bench seat inside the ambulance.
Once the ride began, the patient became agitated. She drew a knife which had been concealed in her pants and placed it to a crewmember's throat.
There were a few tense moments, but crewmembers were able to eventually subdue the patient and radio for help. Neither the crewmember nor the patient were harmed, and the group was able to proceed to the hospital without further incident.
The reporter said as a result of the incident, distraught patients are now required to be transported to the hospital on a stretcher. Patients who are violent must be restrained with police assistance and transported under police escort. The reporter also stated the importance of stress debriefing during life-threatening situations.
Tippett said some fire departments use the reports for training, and the site even spurred one department to change its Standard Operational Procedure book.
"The more we talk about these things," he said, "the better we become."
