Aug 28, 2019
911, what’s the nature of your emergency?
Ashlie: Welcome back to another episode of
Tactical Living by LEO Warriors. I'm your host Ashlie
Walton.
Clint: And I’m your co-host Clint Walton.
Ashlie: In today's episode we're going to talk about substance abuse and how Narcan plays a role in that of a police officer. So just sit back, relax and enjoy today's content. As you listen I constantly prompt Clint with questions based out of curiosity of things that I’m unaware of because I don't live in his world as a police officer. I do that because I have such a desire for understanding the resources that he has and how he uses them in his day to day world. One of the topics of conversation that came up recently was the use of Narcan. I was asking Clint all the normal questions that somebody without any sort of knowledge of personal drug abuse would ask. And Clint I wonder if you could just share with the listener a little bit about your thoughts on Narcan as a whole.
Clint: I think Narcan is a very good
solution to the drug overdose problem. But at the same time it
could be very harmful if it's not utilized in the correct way or
with the right substance. In what I’ve seen just on tv and other
agencies in which they use it, you kind of open yourself up to a
liability to where if you don't recognize an overdose compared to
say a diabetic shock and you think it's an overdose and you realize
it could actually do more harm than good. And so it's being able to
really evaluate that aspect of when to use it or when not to use it
and opening yourself up to liability. Our agency currently doesn't
use it. They don't give it to the officers responding to those
incidents. That's where the fire department or the ambulance
drivers are there to administer it if needed. But it also kind of
weighs into the effect of we're doing something out of our general
scope of duties. Now they're asking us to be a medical professional
so to speak. And it's interesting I had a lieutenant bring this up
to me a couple of years ago and I really like this and it stuck
with me. I relish in the fact of firefighters. What do you see a
firefighter doing if you look back 20 years ago? They fought fires.
That's all they did. They didn't respond to medical emergencies.
They didn't respond to those instances where someone needed
help. They responded to fires and I always joke getting
kittens out of trees, because they had the long ladders. But over
time their job has changed. You know new developments in fire
safety and fire extinguishers and sprinkler systems drought houses
we've seen less and less fires. So they had to incorporate
something else to pretty much rationalize their job description.
That's when they started responding to medical emergencies as well
to shorten time frames and actually provide that medical assistance
at the scenes before being transferred to the hospital and just
relying on doctors to treat individuals. This has reduced you know
severe injuries or death out at a scene of a crash or a shooting
scene. Because they're able to provide that first on scene medic
responsibility to control that situation until the medical
professionals are able to correct it. We describe ourselves as
we just delayed the process of death. We don't stop death. We
prevent it for a short time. The doctor stopped it and that ties in
for the fire department as well as us. You know there's certain
aspects we're having to pick up more and more on to articulate what
we do. With our future changing and cars being self driven and the
need for a motorcycle enforcement officers or traffic tickets going
out there. It's not going to be necessary if we have all
self-driving cars. Because it's an all automated process where
there's no human aspect involved. And I can't cite a car for
doing what it's not supposed to be doing. So over the years
we're going to have to develop and figure out what needs to change
to articulate our response for our jobs.
Ashlie: I think that's a great point to
point out and maybe something we don't always consider being the
evolution of first responders and how the dynamics of their jobs
have changed based on how much society has changed. The drug
epidemic used to never be what it is today. And it seems that we're
trying to find more and more ways to try to mend what happens on
the backside of that. And in my opinion I think it's unfortunate
that we've even gotten to this point to where we would put that
sort of liability and that sort of due diligence in the hands of a
first responder with them assuming responsibility for whether or
not this patient lives or dies.
Clint: And it's kind of funny damned if we
do, damned if we don't. Because say I work to provide Narcan
to someone who I believe was overdosed and it works, great. But if
I had it and I didn't do it, then I’m screwed there. But if they
were overdosing and I wasn't sure and I didn't use it, I’m damned
there too.
Ashlie: Yeah it's really not fair. It creates too many gray areas in our profession where society is already imposing so many of those gray areas on you already. And it also makes you I would assume just question so much around what's happening in those situations. And I like that you bring up everything with the fire department, because there was an agency that was running this beta test where they actually have a medical doctor going with them from call to call. And that medical doctor is saving so much money because they're able to treat the patient on site. Eliminate the need for something like 70 percent of transports that were unnecessarily sent to the hospital just by literally having a doctor on scene to be able to treat the patient there and a lot of the times it's simply done and done deal or asking them to follow up with their MD, their medical doctor themselves after the fact. And that's something we would have never thought. I mean when you think about it it's like going back into the day where doctors would perform house calls on patients. This is really like the same thing only you have to be so dire that you're calling 911 in order to access it.
Clint: And it's crazy to even think of
that because that would be amazing. It would reduce our emergency
room and just in general transport service and tax pays that we're
having to spend to get these people to the hospital, because no one
there is a medical professional to determine if they need to go or
not.
Ashlie: And that's a big problem. In being
in the medical field for 12 years I can tell you in our area in
particular, we are so inundated in a lot of that is because the
housing became so affordable up here we started to build a
significant amount of housing tracks and people were moving up here
from LA. which side note increased the level of danger for our
community. But we live in this tri city area where we have two
hospitals and in those two hospitals during the wintertime the
average wait is nine to 12 hours. And the reason for that is
because of the under education of patients thinking that they have
an emergency, an emergency is I cannot get a hold of my doctor and
my kid has a broken bone. I cannot get a hold of my doctor and I
don't know whether or not I should go. And even in those
situations most insurances have a nurse advice line that you can
call to ask for guidance on those questions. An emergency as I
think I need stitches. I think I am dying. I cannot breathe. Those
are the types of ailments that require a visit to the emergency
room or a 911 phone call. Taking your child to the emergency room
because they've had a fever for 24 hours does not constitute the
need for an emergency room visit. Except in very small
circumstances where maybe it's a literally a newborn baby. Again
even in situations like that contacting your insurance and your
nurse advice line could a lot of times avoid being exposed to all
the other yuck that you're sitting there for hours just festering
in, when you didn't need to be there at all. Apart from that if
your doctor is not open you can go to the urgent care. The urgent
care can treat everything that your own primary medical doctor can
do apart from giving most immunizations, performing
physicals. But if you have a fracture, if you need sutures,
stitches, if you think there's something wrong with your tummy, if
you have a fever. There are so many more urgent carers to access
that do not constitute this incredible bill that comes on the
backside of going to the emergency room because you have a booboo.
That's not how the system works. And the problem is that people are
not educated on the process of that and getting back to the
discussion on Narcan. There's no line between what your profession
consists of. Sure, many professions nowadays have some level of
medical training. Even if you have a reception job working at a
medical institution most people have CPR or first aid certification
is a requirement. But being a first responder how far do you have
to go in that training as a medical professional. When you're
already going so far based on all of the new standards that are
being imposed as the profession evolves and I think that it gets
really confusing and this starts to confuse you in your own
profession. What am I? Am I a police officer? Am I part
firefighter? Am I an EMT?
Clint: Am I a psychiatrist?
Ashlie: The list goes on and on and we see that post on social media all the time like this is not what I signed up for. Well I think that's just a part of the game. You don't know what you signed up for when you have a profession that's constantly evolving. You agreed to that when you signed on, because you've paid witness to this evolution until you decided to become a first responder and I think as time goes on it's important to just take ownership of your profession and to just be open to the fact that you're going to be asked to do things like this that you might not be comfortable with. The best thing in my opinion that you can do is to just study the guidelines. Do what's asked of you and if you're in doubt ask somebody around you in that situation what their thoughts are maybe before administering that dose for example. There will be other ways to better incorporate your methodologies and what your plan of action is in that sort of situation as you get more practice with it. And I love the fact that we're bringing more awareness to the substance abuse problem in our country, especially now you know under the presidency of our current president a lot has changed in the realm of diagnosing treating and educating and then prevention. But as time goes on as you listen, I would encourage you to just be open to these changes instead of showcasing defiance or indicating that this isn't my responsibility. Question ways that you could make it a part of your responsibility. What are the ways you can make it easier on yourself? How can you learn something in a way that you can then teach to somebody else to lessen the stress. It's already such a stressful profession. When you're able to do that and you're able to embrace the fact that change will come. Then it really allows you to enjoy your Tactical Living.
Balance. Optimize. Tactics.
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Email: ashliewalton555@gmail.com
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