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For immediate release: Henry Repeating Arms EMS Tribute Rifle raffle to benefit National EMS Memorial Service Henry Repeating Arms Company has added an EMS tribute rifle to their “Tribute Edition” line of Golden Boy rifles and donated the first produced to be raffled off, with proceeds benefiting the National EMS Memorial Service. The EMS Tribute rifle joins the previously released ...

… don’t pull the trigger again. Keep your pistol pointed down range, investigate, and clear the malfunction. Step away from the line if need be. This was from a new box of Federal Champion 9mm, aluminum-cased 115gr FMJ. As far as I know, there were no other issues with any other rounds from that box. Luckily for me, the underpowered ...

The Kilted to Kick cancer 2014 Fundraising Challenge was a huge success, bringing in $14,448 in only 30 days of fundraising. Final team standings are as follows: Team                                              Donations                 Totals Team JayG                                        69                          3435 Team Borepatch                               43                          2353 Team Ambulance ...

Kilted to Kick Cancer 2014 has begun! Please, click here to donate to my fundraising campaign. Choose “Team Ambulance Driver” in the drop down menu, and donate what you can. All donations are tax deductible as 501(c)3 charitable donations. And if you’d like to play a more active role in fundraising, form a fundraising team and vie for one of ...

In this week’s episode of Inside EMS, co-host Chris Cebollero and I discuss the latest EMS news and events, discuss why many EMS Quality Assurance programs don’t actually assure quality, and why we should be concerned about depression and mental illness among EMS providers. In our Guest Table segment, I interview Chris about the EMS response to the recent riots ...

Brandon Oto over at EMS Basics shares a story where monkey-see monkey-do medicine went wrong. Go read the whole thing, and then come back. If you learn nothing else in EMS, learn this: protocols are no substitute for common sense and clinical decision-making. In fact, they’re often the antithesis of critical thinking and clinical decision making. Protocols, with very few ...

Thank yew, thank yew verra mush… Headed out for my flight home from the Nebraska Statewide EMS Conference. Sadly, both the Hornady ammunition plant and Cabela’s flagship store are just minutes away, but I don’t have time to visit either. Great conference, great people, had a wonderful time. Kudos to the planning committee and staff, and everyone who attended. You’re ...

Direct quote from an experienced EMS educator from a nationally respected paramedic education program: “He will be a good medic if he can forget the crap he learned during his 12 years as an EMT in a [unnamed Eastern Seaboard state] service.” From the comments in this post and the podcast page and related Facebook threads, seems a great many ...

…testicles… testicles… Just configuring my WordPress mobile app and my Facebook and Twitter crossposting. Nevermind me. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

… Rob Reed has a good writeup of the Shooter Self Care course in GunUp the Magazine. What? Don’t subscribe to GunUp? Well, why the hell not? It’s a good magazine. And if you’re interested, DiveMedic, EMS Artifact and I are prepared to take Shooter Self Care on the road. Hit us up for a course at your range or ...

You may notice a new look to the blog. The guys at my new blog network did some remodeling and sprucing up for me. I kinda like it. Take a look around, and tell me what you think. After spending five years at the JEMS Fire/EMS Blogs network, I’ve moved over to the First Arriving network, sponsored by the folks ...

Not the sort of thing you expect to hear when you’re white. Of course, hearing it when you’re black, or brown, or gay, or whatever the heck you are, isn’t something we should tolerate, either. Discrimination and bigotry is ugly in any form. But The Ex Missus and Husband-In-Law heard it a couple of weeks ago, from the desk clerk ...

Today marks the 70th anniversary of Operation Neptune, the deadly beach landings at Normandy, part of the larger Normandy invasion that was Operation Overlord. On this day, 2,499 American men lost their lives storming those beaches and parachuting into Normandy. Before Operation Overlord was concluded eighty-one days later, America had laid the lives of another  18,339 of its sons upon ...

The Girlfriend and I are away from the Little Cottage In The Woods for the weekend, attending/speaking at the CT EMS Expo. This is my eighth time speaking in Connecticut; third time at their state conference, a couple of symposiums for the nice folks in Sharon, and three seminars for the guys at Emergency Resource Management. Let’s just say that ...

Monday is Memorial Day. Most of us will spend the weekend grilling burgers and visiting with relatives, or lounging on a beach somewhere, or watching a baseball game in an opulent stadium, overpriced beer and hot dog in hand. And most of us will have forgotten the meaning of the day. So when you partake in your Memorial Day festivities ...