What's your goal? To prove that you are right? Or is it to find something, anything, to prove I'm wrong about something, even if it isn't even remotely related to the topic? It isn't really the original issue at all, is it, you just want me to be wrong about something, cause that'll make it easier for you to rationalize your position.
Here, I know you're slow, but read these. I did your work for you, which apparently is the goal all along. They are actually relevant:
Violence against emergency medical services personnel.
Grange JT, Corbett SW.
Prehosp Emerg Care. 2002 Apr-Jun;6(2):186-90.
Exposure of prehospital care providers to violence.
Corbett SW, Grange JT, Thomas TL.
Prehosp Emerg Care. 1998 Apr-Jun;2(2):127-31.
Exposure of prehospital providers to violence and abuse.
Pozzi C.
J Emerg Nurs. 1998 Aug;24(4):320-3.
Violent patients and the prehospital provider.
Tintinalli JE, McCoy M.
Ann Emerg Med. 1993 Aug;22(8):1276-9. Erratum in: Ann Emerg Med 1993 Oct;22(10):1635.
Relationship of restraint use, patient injury, and assaults on
EMS personnel.
Cheney PR, Gossett L, Fullerton-Gleason L, Weiss SJ, Ernst AA, Sklar D.
Prehosp Emerg Care. 2006 Apr-Jun;10(2):207-12.
There's 5 studies I found, and it isn't even my field. No one has contended that
EMS workers don't face hazards. The contention is that facing hazards is part of the job, and if you can't handle the risk, find something a little calmer, like sculpting shrubbery, to do. I don't know how much simpler i can state it: if your main concern is saving your own ass, and you don't have the balls, or female equivalent of the balls, to go into harm's way to do your duty, quit. Now. You'll feel better, and someone with the spine to actually gut up and do the right thing can go in your place.
I found THIS little gem:
http://www.nemsms.org/notices.htm
which is apparently the
EMS equivalent of the ODMP or LEOMF
Check my math here, but it appears that the percentage of
EMS line of duty deaths attributed to violence so far in 2010 is:
%0.00
And for 2009:
%8.69, which includes one killed by a sniper "upon returning to base.". One was killed at a scene. In numbers, that's 2 out of 23. But 5 died due to CVAs: that's %21.74.
Does that mean you want me to come over and put you through PT 3 times a week? I mean, hell, if you want to be "safe," apparently I have to be your personal bodyguard everywhere you go, including YOUR station, so I guess I won't even have to make a special trip.
And for 2008:
%0.0
But there are those pesky heart attacks again: %15.15
Maybe we should bump PT up to 4 times a week. You'll be safer, and live longer, and all that good stuff you are so concerned about.
I'll stop after going back 3 years, but why don't you go through those same records, and do the numbers on aircraft crashes and MVAs. Do you want me to come over and drive the ambulance for you, too? Walk in front and wave a red lantern to warn people that you are coming? And none of this even factors in critical variables, like the size of the population of
EMS workers, and the number of runs totaled up for the time periods
And explain this to me- what's up with medics croaking from medical conditions at the scene? I mean, you guys work in pairs, don't you, at the least? What's the other one do while the one is gorking out? Drop the patient and attend to the guy having the heart attack? If that's the case, I'm hoping that some actually live through it, cause if every medic who has an on duty heart attack dies, uh, something's not right with that :shock: Either a lot more of your guys and girls could use that 4x/week workout, or if I get chest pains I'm calling FedEx for a home pick-up. Talk about fail......
If it makes you feel better, cops are no different. We have our fair share of fat, unmotivated slobs who can't drive, and some who would turn tail and run at the first sign of danger. But that doesn't make it OK for either profession, and I tell them the same things.