Scene safety scenario

[Dark Angel]

You are dispatched to the address of a residence where an elderly gentleman lives with his 2-3 sons. The sons are well known to law enforcement. While juveniles, they have done several armed robberies, and lately their bad behavior continues to escalate. They are known to be armed and will shoot at absolutely any vehicle with flashing lights and a siren. The last couple times LEOs have been to the residence, the boys have bailed out windows and hid in an empty house across the street, or in the attic of their residence.

All FD/EMS personnel have been instructed to never approach this address until LEOs have cleared the scene. You have a note included on the dispatch screen of your MDT that states a glass shelf has fallen on your patient, he is unable to get up, and to enter through the back of the house.

Multiple LEOs arrive at the house, and you creep up slowly, until you can see the back yard of the residence through other houses, but are still safely back from the scene. You see PD in the back yard with weapons drawn, and they eventually make entry into the house.

A short time later, dispatch advises you that PD states you are cleared to enter the house, but go through the back door. As you pull up outside the address, you can see a single flashlight moving around on the second story of the house and 1-2 lights have been turned on in various rooms. An LEO opens the front door of the house and indicates he wants you to enter through the front door, rather than through the back. He tells you the patient is to the right, through the dining room, and in the bathroom at the end of a hallway. The bathroom you patient is in is directly in front of you. There is a windowless laundry room to your left and the door to the garage is to your right. The actual garage door to the outside is closed for the night. There is a pit bull in the garage.

You enter the house, as directed by the LEO, and as you do, 2-3 officers come around the corner from the back of the house, and head up the staircase, directly in front of you, after initially entering the home. They have their weapons drawn, one of them has a rifle, and it appears as if they are still sweeping the upstairs of the house.

So, what do you do? Do you go ahead and make contact with your patient or do you back out of the house and let PD know you will come back in once they have completed what they are doing upstairs? Do you do something completely different? Does the condition of the patient come into play in your decision making?

[SpotsyMedic]

So, what do you do? Do you go ahead and make contact with your patient or do you back out of the house and let PD know you will come back in once they have completed what they are doing upstairs? Do you do something completely different? Does the condition of the patient come into play in your decision making?

Personally, if I had any inkling that the scene was not safe, I would back out immediately and wait until the ENTIRE house and grounds have been cleared (including the attic) AND the house across the street. Officers can put direct pressure on a lac for a minute or two until the scene is secured. I have a family to go home to. The old man has been harboring fugitives for years, it sounds like, that have made treating him safely difficult. It's called "Natural Consequences."

IMHO, they had no business bringing you in until the house was completely secured. Your mileage may vary.

[cwl3gemt]

I agree with Spots. Ill back out before the popo can say anything. They have the body armor on, and mileage varying, I don't. I'm goin home after shift. I'm also allergic to high velocity lead. (Insert laughter here.)

[kojoff]

What about LE bringing the pt to you? Most LE around here have some basic training in the EMS field. Give them some basic equipment and have them bring pt out.

[Dorkfish]

Same here. I will be going out the same door I came in, or if it is blocked making a new one. I am a pretty big guy and sheetrock breaks pretty easy.

Then when all is said and done a request will be filed that someone instruct the LEOs as to what I/we consider a " safe " scene.

Rule # 1 : watch out for #1
Rule #2 : after that, watch out for #2( your partner)
Rule #3: All bleeding will stop in due time.

[Dark Angel]

If I had been given this scenario, I would have said the same thing as everyone else. However, it is amazing how we can sometimes get tunnel vision if we are not careful.

This was one of my runs last shift. Even though I know what we "should" have done, that wasn't what we actually did. Instead, we went ahead and entered the home.

The old guy wasn't hurt at all. Even though the shelf had fallen, he managed to move and avoid it. However, that caused him to fall and he couldn't get back up without assistance. He had no cuts from the broken glass and denied having any other complaints of any type. We helped him back into his chair and made sure he had a friend/neighbor on the way to help him clean up the mess. The entire time we were with the gentleman, there was an officer with us.

It wasn't until after the fact, when we were back in our truck and talking about what had just happened that we said, "Boy, that was really stupid on our part!" We got back to station and notified our officer of the incident. I was asked to send an email up to our battalion chief, so he could pass it along and make sure something similar doesn't happen again.

So, basically, I just wanted to share this story to remind everyone to not get tunnel vision. Make sure you stop and do the things you say you would do, if you were presented with a similar situation as a scenario.

As an added note, just to make our mistake in judgment seem even more stupid, today we had about 10 cop cars show up in the parking lot at the fire house. They were headed over to stake out the house in hopes of arresting one of the boys on a felony warrant. It is just a matter of time before something really bad happens over there. There have been some armed robberies in the area and the boys match the descriptions and one of them has threatened to shoot up an officer's house.

[luke_31]

Should have been a note on the MDT to stage and wait for PD to drag the pt. to you. Sounds like that location is one that should have swat medics if you have in your area go to with the team.

[cwl3gemt]

Same here. I will be going out the same door I came in, or if it is blocked making a new one. I am a pretty big guy and sheetrock breaks pretty easy.

Then when all is said and done a request will be filed that someone instruct the LEOs as to what I/we consider a " safe " scene.

Rule # 1 : watch out for #1
Rule #2 : after that, watch out for #2( your partner)
Rule #3: All bleeding will stop in due time.

and if your making a new door, im right behind you!

[PSYCtest040]

Back out to a safe location and wait for LEO's to extinguish the lives of the fucktard sons. OK I know that sounds a little extreme but one one of these days it will escalate into a shootout and I'd rather have a window seat than being in the ring.

[FF/EMTP1317]

I definitely agree with what everyone else has said about getting the heck out of there. There is no reason they should have let you into that house. The sons were already in trouble so I'm sure they'd have no problem taking anyone else out with them.

I had this conversation with some local LEO's in my area. The one didn't seem to understand why were backing out because our agitated, suicidal, ex-military, ex-pd pt had access to several guns and knives in the room where he was sitting. He got a nice talking-to after I reported the incident to my supervisor.