If whats being reported is true, they deserve it though. All of us in EMS (should) know that you cannot trust the police and they do not have authority to give you medical orders. When it comes to police on scene of EMS calls I have found that there are some very good cops and some very bad cops and also some very well meaning but misguided cops who do not understand medical emergencies because they are not healthcare providers. So if a cop calls you to a scene, you listen to what they say, but then you do your own thorough assessment. Always. You do not let them direct your treatment. And if police call me to the scene to treat a patient, well, that is now my patient and I am in charge of them and what I say goes. If they are in police custody I am going to respect that and I am going to let an officer stay with them because that is the law, but as long as we can keep the environment safe for everyone present, my need to provide proper patient care trumps any needs by police (within the law).
I was actually in a somewhat similar situation as this once, and it still terrifies me to this day because of how quickly it all could have gone bad. I had gotten on scene with my paramedic partner to find a black man handcuffed in the back of a cruiser screaming at police and police screaming back at him and when we asked what was going on we had police tell us it didn’t matter “just ketamine him.” We refused to ketamine him even when we were pressured to and had police threaten to phone our medical director. You don’t need medical knowledge to know that just because someone is screaming doesn’t mean they need sedated and we hadn’t even been able to get close enough to try to talk to the person to see if he would calm down and talk to us or if there was even anything medical/psychiatric/drug related going on. I was so sick to my stomach the whole time worried that I was going to witness police murder that man, things had clearly gotten out of control, no one was thinking clearly, and my partner and I were desperately trying to figure out wtf was going on and were trying to de-escalate the situation while not doing anything to inadvertently trigger either side to do something stupid and give police a reason to pull a gun. I remember after the call my partner and I talking about how helpless we felt. It felt like trying to de-activate a bomb without setting it off when we didn’t understand it or know how the bomb even got activated because no one would tell us anything.
Thankfully the story had the happiest ending possible and we were able to get everyone calmed down, de-escalated everything verbally, figured out that the guy was going through some rough stuff, and we transported him to the hospital to go talk to someone (no ketamine needed). Everyone stayed safe that day, but it could have ended so much worse.
Anyway, my point to all this is that I’ve been in this shitty situation where the police are not acting with any integrity, and the “easy” path is to do what they tell you to do, but you’re a shit provider and a shit person if you do that, you’re risking your medical license, and also potentially committing a criminal act. When you are a healthcare provider you have a duty to advocate for your patient and you need to do that to the best of your ability, even if it puts you in a shitty situation, no matter the cost, at the end of the day, if you’ve done 100% the best you can do for your patient, it doesn’t matter if the police are calling your supervisor saying you’re difficult to work with.
If whats being reported is true, they deserve it though. All of us in EMS (should) know that you cannot trust the police and they do not have authority to give you medical orders. When it comes to police on scene of EMS calls I have found that there are some very good cops and some very bad cops and also some very well meaning but misguided cops who do not understand medical emergencies because they are not healthcare providers. So if a cop calls you to a scene, you listen to what they say, but then you do your own thorough assessment. Always. You do not let them direct your treatment. And if police call me to the scene to treat a patient, well, that is now my patient and I am in charge of them and what I say goes. If they are in police custody I am going to respect that and I am going to let an officer stay with them because that is the law, but as long as we can keep the environment safe for everyone present, my need to provide proper patient care trumps any needs by police (within the law).
I was actually in a somewhat similar situation as this once, and it still terrifies me to this day because of how quickly it all could have gone bad. I had gotten on scene with my paramedic partner to find a black man handcuffed in the back of a cruiser screaming at police and police screaming back at him and when we asked what was going on we had police tell us it didn’t matter “just ketamine him.” We refused to ketamine him even when we were pressured to and had police threaten to phone our medical director. You don’t need medical knowledge to know that just because someone is screaming doesn’t mean they need sedated and we hadn’t even been able to get close enough to try to talk to the person to see if he would calm down and talk to us or if there was even anything medical/psychiatric/drug related going on. I was so sick to my stomach the whole time worried that I was going to witness police murder that man, things had clearly gotten out of control, no one was thinking clearly, and my partner and I were desperately trying to figure out wtf was going on and were trying to de-escalate the situation while not doing anything to inadvertently trigger either side to do something stupid and give police a reason to pull a gun. I remember after the call my partner and I talking about how helpless we felt. It felt like trying to de-activate a bomb without setting it off when we didn’t understand it or know how the bomb even got activated because no one would tell us anything. Thankfully the story had the happiest ending possible and we were able to get everyone calmed down, de-escalated everything verbally, figured out that the guy was going through some rough stuff, and we transported him to the hospital to go talk to someone (no ketamine needed). Everyone stayed safe that day, but it could have ended so much worse.
Anyway, my point to all this is that I’ve been in this shitty situation where the police are not acting with any integrity, and the “easy” path is to do what they tell you to do, but you’re a shit provider and a shit person if you do that, you’re risking your medical license, and also potentially committing a criminal act. When you are a healthcare provider you have a duty to advocate for your patient and you need to do that to the best of your ability, even if it puts you in a shitty situation, no matter the cost, at the end of the day, if you’ve done 100% the best you can do for your patient, it doesn’t matter if the police are calling your supervisor saying you’re difficult to work with.