My last one I think. In this case an engine crew is accused of refusing to help a man who collapsed and appeared to be having a heart attack. His daughter ran across the street to DC FEMS Engine 26. There she found a fire fighter and asked for help. The allegation is that he told her that she needed to call 9-1-1 and they would send an ambulance along.

The story gets worse from there with conflicting incident reports and the Lieutenant on the engine blaming a probationary fire fighter. As of this posting, that LT has put in her paperwork to retire.

The interested reader can easily find a number of stories about the incident. I’m not motivated to add a link because the litany of malfeasance with DCFEMS is long and I’ve blogged about it before. Suffice it to say that there is no cure for their problems except the bureaucratic version of Control-Alt-Delete.

The only way that the problems are going to be addressed is by taking the following stesp,

1) Separate the EMS service from the fire service. Totally.

2) Hire an experienced EMS Chief to run the new EMS service.

3) Hire an experienced Medical Director to oversee the medical part of the service. That includes hiring, retention, promotion, training, protocols, and of course oversight and Quality Assurance.

4) Hire, promote, discipline, and retain EMS personnel solely on the basis of their qualifications, not their “protected status” or any other political consideration. That includes fighting the union when it comes to discipline and promotions.

5) Fund the system adequately to meet demand. That means salaries, equipment purchases, adequate staffing, sufficient number of vehicles to meet the systems needs, and a real fleet maintenance program.

I promise not to post about EMS in the nations capitol again until these steps are taken. No matter how outrageous the charge or allegation.

I fully expect never to post about DC FEMS again because flying monkey will come out of my anus before the above listed items happen. I don’t hear the flapping of monkey wings down there, so nothing is imminent.