Disaster Podcast

On this episode, we talk about something in the news quite frequently now regarding opioid overdose and responder contact overdose when handling or accidentally coming into contact with opioid drugs like Fentanyl. On this episode, we have Dr. Joe Holley from Paragon Medical Education Group and co-hosts Sam Bradley and Jamie Davis.

Dr. Joe talks about the facts regarding this type of exposure and how there is little evidence that it is true. Still, there can be incidents where some exposures can occur. Joe suspects most exposures occur through mucous membranes rather than transdermal routes. In his experience, this is rare and highly uncommon unless some sort of aerosolization occurs with the drugs in question so that the drug is inhaled or comes in contact with eyes, nose, and mouth mucous membranes. Even then it is unlikely unless simple and common precautions like wearing exam gloves and other basic PPE.

Disaster Never Sleeps, Neither Do We

We will be bringing you more special updates from our Disaster Podcast team members as we get them in from around the world.

Stay tuned here to the Disaster Podcast website at DisasterPodcast.com or on our Disaster Podcast Facebook group for updates and discussion.

Paragon Brings “The Experience”

Paragon Medical Education Group specializes in bringing what they call “The Experience” to jurisdictions around the country. They bring together police, fire, EMS, and hospital teams to train together and learn what to expect from each diverse group in the response team so that each knows what to expect from the other and how to back the other groups up. Visit Paragon’s site at ParagonMedicalGroup.com for more information on how this can be brought into your system.

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Glen Simpson from Las Vegas based Community Ambulance talks event EMS in the face of mass casualty incidents on this week’s show. Glen was the special event coordinator providing care for the Route 61 concert series in Las Vegas the night of the mass shooting incident on October 1 of this year. Join us as he shares his experiences from that night and how planning and preparation helped his team provide care during a very difficult incident.

Notes from Glen’s chat with the podcast crew:

* The special event medical standby service managers should have first name basis relationships with public safety officials.

* Special Event Medical Standby Services require professional pre-planning, assigning the appropriate number of well- equipped, visibly uniformed, ICS trained resources staged strategically throughout the venue. Ambulances should be well marked and located at least two points of egress.

* Standby crews should visibly demonstrate their customer service attitude as they are on notice at special event gatherings.

* Should an event or incident occur, ICS should be set up immediately by a trained ICS manager.

* The special event medical standby service should have enough off-site resources to be immediately scalable. The company should be able to immediately communicate with its off-site and accessible resources.  (Very often, the event planners can’t or won’t fund additional resources.  It is necessary to at least have additional resources ready to respond even if they are part of your on-duty staff.)

* The company’s communications center tech will be instrumental in the overall success of the incident’s management.  For optimal success with incident management, ensure your communications center is robust enough to handle a large-scale incident and that it is linked with the local 9-1-1 system.

* Your special event medical standby service should give credit where it is due and should understand that sometimes there isn’t enough thanks to mitigate the impact of responding to tragic events.  Should that be the case, responders should be offered psychological counseling and on-going support.

About Community Ambulance:

Community Ambulance provides emergency (9-1-1) and non-emergency medical transport. The Henderson, Nev.-based company uses the latest state-of-the-art technology to ensure employees are given every tool to deliver patients and customers the highest level and fastest service. Community Ambulance, which is CAAS (Commission on Accreditation of Ambulance Services) accredited: the highest industry standard for EMS excellence.

Joining Glen on this episode were hosts, Jamie Davis, the Podmedic, Sam Bradley, Kyle Nelson, and Dr. Joe Holley from Paragon Medical Education Group.

Disaster Never Sleeps, Neither Do We

We will be bringing you more special updates from our Disaster Podcast team members as we get them in from around the world.

Stay tuned here to the Disaster Podcast website at DisasterPodcast.com or on our Disaster Podcast Facebook group for updates and discussion.

Paragon Brings “The Experience”

Paragon Medical Education Group specializes in bringing what they call “The Experience” to jurisdictions around the country. They bring together police, fire, EMS, and hospital teams to train together and learn what to expect from each diverse group in the response team so that each knows what to expect from the other and how to back the other group...

In this episode, our regular disaster social media and weather expert, Kyle Nelson, comes on to discuss the highlights of the recent International Association of Emergency Managers conference. He discusses new technologies and, most importantly, how that technology is being used to mitigate and respond to emergency situations like disasters.

On this episode were hosts, Jamie Davis, the Podmedic, Sam Bradley, Kyle Nelson, and Dr. Joe Holley from Paragon Medical Education Group.

Disaster Never Sleeps, Neither Do We

We will be bringing you more special updates from our Disaster Podcast team members as we get them in from around the world.

Stay tuned here to the Disaster Podcast website at DisasterPodcast.com or on our Disaster Podcast Facebook group for updates and discussion.

Paragon Brings “The Experience”

Paragon Medical Education Group specializes in bringing what they call “The Experience” to jurisdictions around the country. They bring together police, fire, EMS, and hospital teams to train together and learn what to expect from each diverse group in the response team so that each knows what to expect from the other and how to back the other groups up. Visit Paragon’s site at ParagonMedicalGroup.com for more information on how this can be brought into your system.

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On this episode, we have filmmaker Ted Setla on the show this week to share his experiences work with American Medical Response (AMR) to document their ambulance strike teams during the recent spate of hurricanes to strike the continental U.S. Ted was deployed with his camera to both Houston for Hurricane Harvey and to Florida for Hurricane Irma. He also looked at the after incident stress management from the Las Vegas October 1 shooting incident.

We examine Ted’s work providing a way to record responder’s and their feelings so that they can get some of this out of their system. It also provides a useful record to help teach future generations of responders how to prepare for the feelings they will experience while treating patients in mass casualty incidents.

Joining Ted on this episode were hosts, Jamie Davis, the Podmedic, Sam Bradley, Kyle Nelson, and Dr. Joe Holley from Paragon Medical Education Group.

Disaster Never Sleeps, Neither Do We

We will be bringing you more special updates from our Disaster Podcast team members as we get them in from around the world.

Stay tuned here to the Disaster Podcast website at DisasterPodcast.com or on our Disaster Podcast Facebook group for updates and discussion.

Paragon Brings “The Experience”

Paragon Medical Education Group specializes in bringing what they call “The Experience” to jurisdictions around the country. They bring together police, fire, EMS, and hospital teams to train together and learn what to expect from each diverse group in the response team so that each knows what to expect from the other and how to back the other groups up. Visit Paragon’s site at ParagonMedicalGroup.com for more information on how this can be brought into your system.

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On the call this week we talk about disaster deployments from ambulance services as strike teams for disasters like the recent spate of hurricanes. We have Jamie Pafford-Gresham from Pafford EMS ambulance company. They cover a service area in parts of four different states. They are also a company that started back in 1967.

Pafford EMS also made teams available to response to disasters this year for hurricanes in Texas, Georgia, Florida, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. They also deployed for the wild fires in California. These strike teams did not go out unprepared. They trained and planned for deployment so they could do the job without becoming part of the job in a disaster.

Follow Pafford EMS on Facebook.

About Pafford EMS

Established in 1967, Pafford EMS is a family owned and operated company with a history of providing communities with the latest, most sophisticated level of pre-hospital care on every emergency call we answer. Pafford EMS staffs advanced life support personnel. They continue their committment and training by leading the way in disaster preparedness and support.

Disaster Never Sleeps, Neither Do We

We will be bringing you more special updates from our Disaster Podcast team members as we get them in from around the world.

Stay tuned here to the Disaster Podcast website at DisasterPodcast.com or on our Disaster Podcast Facebook group for updates and discussion.

Paragon Brings “The Experience”

Paragon Medical Education Group specializes in bringing what they call “The Experience” to jurisdictions around the country. They bring together police, fire, EMS, and hospital teams to train together and learn what to expect from each diverse group in the response team so that each knows what to expect from the other and how to back the other groups up. Visit Paragon’s site at ParagonMedicalGroup.com for more information on how this can be brought into your system.

Author and experienced first responder and author Michelle Perin joins hosts Sam Bradley and Jamie Davis on the show at EMS World Expo 2017 to talk about her experiences across several aspects of emergency services. Michelle has been a dispatcher for police officers, a fire-fighter, EMT and crisis management responder.

Michelle shares how she got started with CAHOOTS, a volunteer crisis management team for medical and mental health calls in Eugene Oregon. CAHOOTS stands for “Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets.” Her team responds through the police department’s dispatch center to bring a mental health professional and an EMT or paramedic to situations requiring crisis intervention on the scene of an emergency call.

Disaster Never Sleeps, Neither Do We

We will be bringing you more special updates from our Disaster Podcast team members as we get them in from around the world.

Stay tuned here to the Disaster Podcast website at DisasterPodcast.com or on our Disaster Podcast Facebook group for updates and discussion.

Paragon Brings “The Experience”

Paragon Medical Education Group specializes in bringing what they call “The Experience” to jurisdictions around the country. They bring together police, fire, EMS, and hospital teams to train together and learn what to expect from each diverse group in the response team so that each knows what to expect from the other and how to back the other groups up. Visit Paragon’s site at ParagonMedicalGroup.com for more information on how this can be brought into your system.

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The aftermath of the Las Vegas shooting event is far-reaching and long-lasting. Even though we know that it is still a daunting task to prepare responders for their individual stress reactions to treating patients from such an event. Deputy Chief Jeff Buchanan of the Clark County Fire Department knows this all too well.

While attending the EMS World Expo 2017 conference in Las Vegas, Jim Logan, and Host Sam Bradley sat down with Chief Buchanan to talk about the new peer support team Clark County Fire put in place just prior to the events of October 1st this year. They look at the ongoing efforts to help responders cope with critical incident stress from going out to that call and what will be done moving forward to expand support in the coming months and years to come.

Clark County FD seems to be doing everything right with respect to helping their responders deal with the aftermath of this once in a lifetime situation.  We here at the Disaster Podcast will follow up with Chief Buchanan in the future to check on their ongoing efforts in support of their fire and EMS crews.

For those who wish to contact Chief Buchanan for more information on how you can set up a peer support or other CISM resource like it, he shares his email at the end of the segment.

Disaster Never Sleeps, Neither Do We

We will be bringing you more special updates from our Disaster Podcast team members as we get them in from around the world.

Stay tuned here to the Disaster Podcast website at DisasterPodcast.com or on our Disaster Podcast Facebook group for updates and discussion.

Paragon Brings “The Experience”

Paragon Medical Education Group specializes in bringing what they call “The Experience” to jurisdictions around the country. They bring together police, fire, EMS, and hospital teams to train together and learn what to expect from each diverse group in the response team so that each knows what to expect from the other and how to back the other groups up. Visit Paragon’s site at ParagonMedicalGroup.com for more information on how this can be brought into your system.

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We talk about a prepper podcast medical training weekend run by Kevin Reiter, Sam Bradley, and Kyle Nelson on this week’s episode. Before we get to that, we touch on the weather of the week with a review of Hurricane Nate and the Wildfire situation in northern California.

After the weather and fire updates, the team transitions into a look at a training weekend run by Kevin Reiter from WildSafety.com. He invited Sam and Kyle in to train a group of prepper podcasters and their listener community. The prepper podcasters included SurvivalistPrepper.net and Mind4Survival.com.

Disaster Never Sleeps, Neither Do We

We will be bringing you more special updates from our Disaster Podcast team members as we get them in from around the world.

Stay tuned here to the Disaster Podcast website at DisasterPodcast.com or on our Disaster Podcast Facebook group for updates and discussion.

Paragon Brings “The Experience”

Paragon Medical Education Group specializes in bringing what they call “The Experience” to jurisdictions around the country. They bring together police, fire, EMS, and hospital teams to train together and learn what to expect from each diverse group in the response team so that each knows what to expect from the other and how to back the other groups up. Visit Paragon’s site at ParagonMedicalGroup.com for more information on how this can be brought into your system.

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In this episode of the Disaster Podcast, we look at the early response to the Las Vegas active shooter incident on October 1st. At the time of this recording, the death toll was 59 with 527 people injured. The injured had injuries ranging from gunshot wounds, to trampling, to reports of one individual struck by a motor vehicle. On the show this week are Kyle Nelson our disaster social media expert and weather expert, Dr. Joe Holley and Jim Logan from Paragon Medical Education Group, and co-host Sam Bradley.

Las Vegas and the surrounding community of first responders headed toward the sound of the guns, managing hundreds of dead and severely wounded patients. In addition to fire, police and EMS units treating and transporting patients, many of the patients were transported to local hospitals by civilian vehicles or walked in on their own.

Dr. Joe Holley points out how hospitals today have very little surge capacity from day to day. To receive hundreds of seriously injured patients over the course of a few hours would be devastating to staff and patients alike.

Training and ongoing system-wide protocols and procedures may have made a difference in the handling and outcomes for patients and responders alike. Jim Logan from Paragon Medical Education Group talks about the national discussion about the proper response to active shooter incidents. Some systems continue to resist changes to the nationally accepted best practices based on the hard lessons learned during these active shooter situations.

Disaster Never Sleeps, Neither Do We

We will be bringing you more special updates from our Disaster Podcast team members as we get them in from around the world.

Stay tuned here to the Disaster Podcast website at DisasterPodcast.com or on our Disaster Podcast Facebook group for updates and discussion.

Paragon Brings “The Experience”

Paragon Medical Education Group specializes in bringing what they call “The Experience” to jurisdictions around the country. They bring together police, fire, EMS, and hospital teams to train together and learn what to expect from each diverse group in the response team so that each knows what to expect from the other and how to back the other groups up. Visit Paragon’s site at ParagonMedicalGroup.com for more information on how this can be brought into your system.

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On today’s show, we bring together the team to discuss what kinds of threats and illnesses responders might be exposed to during a disaster deployment or experience after returning from a deployment to a disaster zone. Dr. Joe Holley talks with the rest of the team, including co-hosts Jamie Davis and Sam Bradley, plus our disaster weather expert Kyle Nelson.

Infectious Diseases & Disaster Deployment

Joe talks about how the toxic soup that major floodwaters contain carries all sorts of infectious disease sources. Dengue, Chikungunya, Zika, and other insect-borne illnesses are common in the weeks after major storms in the south. The large areas of sitting water tend to be ready breeding grounds for mosquitoes in these areas.

Kyle brings up questions about self-treating or prophylactically treating yourself with antibiotics. Joe points out that the broad variety of unusual bacteria likely to be found in flood waters require special attention to which drugs are used to treat infections.

Most of the illnesses seen by responders tend to be rashes and other skin issues related to exposure to things mold, chemicals, and other irritants stirred up by the storm and flood waters. Joe points out that there are things you can do to protect yourself and to make sure you aren’t doing things that negatively impact your immune system. Maintaining hydration and mitigating the exertion stress of rescue activities will help alleviate some of these concerns.

Disaster Never Sleeps, Neither Do We

We will be bringing you more special updates from our Disaster Podcast team members as we get them in from around the world.

Stay tuned here to the Disaster Podcast website at DisasterPodcast.com or on our Disaster Podcast Facebook group for updates and discussion.

Paragon Brings “The Experience”

Paragon Medical Education Group specializes in bringing what they call “The Experience” to jurisdictions around the country. They bring together police, fire, EMS, and hospital teams to train together and learn what to expect from each diverse group in the response team so that each knows what to expect from the other and how to back the other groups up. Visit Paragon’s site at ParagonMedicalGroup.com for more information on how this can be brought into your system.

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