I was watching that old tv show "Emergency" (being re-run on Me-Tv). They rescued someone trying to commit suicide by turning on the gas. As soon as the paramedics arrived, they carried the person outdoors, then brought in a large fan and plugged it into an outlet to remove the gas.
WHOA. That did not seem right. Plugging in that fan could have caused a spark at the outlet or inside the fan's motor, and BOOM!
I know this is TV and not always realistic, but that show "Emergency" generally seems pretty realistic.
I was always told that if there is a gas leak, get out of the building and leave the door open. Call 911, and they will shut off the gas and open all doors and windows.
Personally, I'd likely shut the gas off at the meter (or tank if it's propane), as soon as I got outdoors, but many people dont know about that sort of thing.
FD guys are all supposed to be trained in gas shut off.
Agree, that sounds dangerous. In the case of natural gas, a fan down low isn't too bad, the NG rises in free air. Blow some outdoor air in, displace the NG.
In the case of propane, more risk. The propane is heavier than air.
Was this the one when the woman took all the pills, and was on the floor in the living room?
If it is the one I am thinking of, it was a gas stove so they turned it off, there would be no need to shut it off at the meter. The rest, yes I would wonder about that too.
If is is the one I think it was, I later learned that this is pure borderline personality disorder. She was successful in the last Act. I actually used the synopsis of that show teaching the students that you need to take these seriously because sometimes they screw it up and get it right.
Dr. Walter Graf died a month ago. He was in his 90's. He doesn't get any credit on the web, except in 3 obituaries, but his obituary in the Washington Post said that he was a doctor in LA in the 60's when the only thing an ambulance would do is take you to the hospital. Same with the rest of the country. He got some vans outfitted with some equipment, and got the law changed so that nurses I think it was, on ambulances, could do more medical procedures than before.
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s recently as the 1960s, a patient being rushed to the hospital with crushing chest pain would be treated en route only with sirens and sympathy.
Alarmed by high death rates and encouraged by new technology, a small group of pioneering physicians started equipping ambulances with defibrillators and paramedics who knew how to use them. Although today the idea seems straightforward, it was a radical departure from established protocols and was credited with saving countless lives.
"What it all means is that if you have any regard for your health and are over 40, you ought to move to Los Angeles," Dr. Walter S. Graf told The Times in 1978. "Your chances for avoiding sudden death are enhanced."
Graf, a cardiologist who helped establish the modern system of paramedic emergency care, died Oct. 18 at his Los Angeles home, family members said. He was 98.
.... The idea was to speed to heart attack calls with a Daniel Freeman nurse and a portable defibrillator. Later, training was expanded to include firefighters and emergency medical technicians ? groups that, according to Graf's studies, performed just as well as nurses at saving cardiac patients.
"It's easy to take for granted the incredibly elaborate, sophisticated EMS system that we have today, but just 50 years ago, it did not exist," Dr. Clayton Kazan, the medical director for the Los Angeles County Fire Department, said in a statement. "While ambulance transportation existed, virtually no medical care was provided until the patient arrived at the hospital."
Graf's "Heart Car" ? named for its Heart Emergency Assistance Response Team ? helped spark "a movement that has been responsible for saving innumerable lives worldwide," Kazan said. ... In interviews, Graf said he was inspired by the work of Irish physician Frank Pantridge, who chronicled his success with emergency care in a British medical journal.
"Amazingly, the reaction of the British medical establishment consisted for the most part of disbelief, ridicule and even hostility," the Guardian, a British newspaper, noted in its 2005 obituary of Pantridge.
"It was to be 16 years before the concept of taking the care to the patient was fully accepted," the Guardian wrote. "The reaction in America was totally different, and the creation of mobile units was both swift and comprehensive."
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I think this article was the same. No time to read it again.
IOW, because of that group of people, LA led the country in emergency medicine practiced by those in ambulances, and later from the fire department.
I watched the show a lot too years ago, and sometimes now, on MeTV, and I didn't realize until 30 days ago that it represented a real milestone in medicine.
What's strange is that this man gets no notice in Wikip, If you look in the History of Ambulances in wikip, it talks about other people.
I knew that the timing for the show "Emergency" was close to the beginning of the REAL Paramedics and other EMS services, and what you posted confirms this. I also thought that the show was produced to show the public about these new practices and gain some acceptance among the public. Once again, I think I'm right in this thinking. Of course it was also a good series and I still enjoy watching it. Besides being educational it was also adventurous and sometimes quite humorous too. I wish they still produced tv series like this. Most of the stuff on tv these days is not worth the time it takes me to push the ON button on my tv remote.
I think so too. Also the other way around, I'm sure. Some people already knew about it, thought it was good, and enjoyed seeing a dramatization of it.
Actually, I think this is the basis of their idea that it's better to wait for paramedics than to be driven to the hospital, in an emergency. Because fire stations are spread out, fairly near everyone, and hospitals might be farther away (plus in their officious way, they don't want civilians speeding through the streets.) But since I'm only a mile from the hospital (with only one traffic light) and 1.5 miles from the fire station, that might not apply to me or my neighbors. .
That's so true. Thank goodness for MeTV, AntennaTV, Decades, Grit, and a couple others.
CY: Oh, gas at the stove. Well, hope that worked out OK for the guys.
CY: I remember one episode with a woman on pills. The boyfriend kept saying to pump her out and send her home. Dr. Brackett noted they were some thing much different, this time. And she did finally kill her self.
From what FD training I've had, if a gas leak is burning, let it burn. Wet down the area, so the fire doesn't spread. Find a shut off, and valve off the gas. Or in the case of propane or LPG, let it burn out.
Don't want to have a big cloud of unburned fuel that might go boom.
I suspect several things (Such as Dr. Graf's actions) combined at the same time period. I'm grateful they did.
E! Remains one of my favorite TV shows. I enjoy the reruns when I can see them. I caught endless technical errors, like when they flip open the EKG and read V-fib before they connect any leads to the patient.
I still enjoy yelling at the TV set when they make such blunders and mistakes.
I worked at a gas utility for 40 years and learned some facts about gas. Filling a room with gas will NOT kill you, this would only work with manufactured gas (they don't make this stuff anymore), that contained a lot of carbon monoxide, natural gas is not poisonous, but it can make you sick enough to wish it had killed you. You can commit suicide by leaking the gas then igniting it and then it will only explode within a narrow range of concentrations, or you can do the job by displacing all the oxygen.
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