Ambulance Driver Files A Day in the Life | Kelly Grayson

New article up on Medscape:Etiam non silentium. Free to read, but you may have to create a Medscape account if you don’t already have one.

EMS peeps, help a doctoral researcher with a study on stress levels in paramedics, now expanded to include COVID-19 related stress. Our profession lives and dies on research, folks. If we don’t participate in it, we can never take ownership of our profession. The Impact of COVID-19 on First Responders and Family

  Today is Memorial Day. Normally, most of us would have spent 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, but the coronavirus pandemic probably threw a wrench into those plans. But lets not forget the meaning of ...

From my EMS1 column: When you’re new and inexperienced, it’s difficult to separate good practices from bad, and you’re particularly susceptible to believing it when some lazy burnout proclaims, “There’s the way it’s done in class, kid, and there’s the way it’s done on the street.” As author Stewart Stafford puts it, “Separate text from context and all that remains ...

Play Tiger King, the Home Game on EMS1.

… on Medical EDC for Shooting Illustrated.

I took a break from submitting college homework, conference proposals and article submissions today for a little Me Time. Just a short session at the range, total of 120 rounds fired. I worked on half of each box of ammo was spent shooting weak hand-only.In other news, I need to practice more on WHO shooting. I sucked. First up was ...

Yesterday saw me doing accuracy and chrono work for the Girsan 1911SC. Protocol was to chrono 10 consecutive shots from three separate batches/brands of ammunition with different bullet weights. Each of those loads was then tested for accuracy for three consecutive 5-shot groups at 15 yards from a rest. For the test, I used Winchester White Box 124gr FMJ, PMC ...

Got busy with EMS conference season and the holidays, and haven’t been to the range since Blogorado. After speaking with Girsan and getting a new RDS and more magazines, I managed to sneak in a little range time here at Casa de Ambulance Driver. Temperature was a mild 57 degrees, 40% humidity, and sunny. I fired 50 rounds each of ...

Day 3 at Blogorado was a bust. The front sight blade fell off again, despite being affixed with Permatex liquid gasket. My theory was that a Superglue bond would be too brittle, and that liquid gasket, being a bit more flexible, would stand up to recoil better. No dice. After curing for a couple of hours (which may not have ...

Day 2 at Blogorado was gorgeous, with a temp of 65 degrees, 15% humidity, and an elevation of 4500 feet. I started with Magtech 124 grain FMJ, listed by manufacturer with a muzzle velocity of 1109 fps. There was a failure to fire on round #35 (#185 total) when the slide did not go fully back into battery. The failures ...

Photo credit: Jennifer Hast The MC1911SC Ultimate is a compact, officer-length 1911 by Turkish manufacturer Girsan, imported by EAA. Built on a forged aluminum frame, it boasts a number of nice features, including contoured surfaces to eliminate snags, an extended beavertail, extended ambidextrous safety, conical barrel for more positive lockup, G10 grips with a capacity window cut in the side, ...

Okay, Girsan, let’s do this. Today begins the 2000 round challenge of the Girsan MC1911SC Ultimate 9mm, imported by EAA. If you’re unfamiliar with the 2000 round challenge, ala Tamara Keel and Todd Louis Green, read about it here. We’ll clean and lube the pistol according to manufacturer’s specs, and then put 2000 rounds of different types of ammo through ...

“Tell me, and I’ll forget. Show me, and I’ll remember. Let me do, and I’ll understand.” That quote has been attributed to various famous figures and philosophers over the years, but it still holds true for most learning endeavors. That’s why five years ago, I “flipped” my EMS classroom to incorporate more practical application of material, and less of me ...

Made a pilgrimage of sorts today. Speaking at an EMS conference in Seminole, TX, I noticed that Hobbs, NM was just a short jaunt down the road. As a child, I heard many stories about Hobbs Army Airfield from my dad as a child. He had trained as a B17 crew member there in the early days of World War ...