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OldManMac · Oct 12, 2004, 05:11 PM

Is this what you would expect, in this situation? Thoughts?

http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/3803111/detail.html

ClickOnDetroit.com
Dead Man Removed From Ambulance, Put Back In Home
Ambulance Needed For Another Emergency

POSTED: 12:28 PM EDT October 12, 2004
UPDATED: 3:40 PM EDT October 12, 2004

SAN MARCOS, Calif. -- As Natalie Collet watched her father dying in the doorway of her San Marcos home last Wednesday, she could never have predicted the events that would follow.

Ambulance Needed Elsewhere, Leaves Dead Body

Paramedics arrived and worked on Ken Collet for about half an hour, then put him in the ambulance and told Natalie to meet them at Tri-City Medical Center.

"They had the door shut on the ambulance," she said.

Collet's roommate, Denise Dougherty, drove her to the hospital, where a nurse told her that her father was alive. Then, 15 minutes later, a doctor said otherwise.

"He said, 'He didn't make it. He died,'" Collet said.

Ken was 58 years old and ill. His death did not shock Collet, but what the doctor said next, did.

"And then he says, 'But he's not here.' I said, 'What do you mean he's not here?,'" Collet responded.

Collet's father was back at her house on the living room floor, dead.

While Collet was being driven to the hospital, a deputy and a fire crew entered the locked house through the open window and put Ken Collet's body on the living room floor and waited outside. The ambulance Ken had been in was needed in another emergency.

A fire department spokesperson said, "We had a young captain facing a tough decision: Leave the body outside or leave the body in the ambulance, taking it out of service for several hours. We were trying to serve the patient's needs and serve the community needs."

"Is this normal procedure? They said, 'We had to free up the ambulance.' Yeah, that was their reason. 'We had to free up the ambulance,'" Dougherty said.

"Every time I come into my living room now, I just see my dad," Collet said.

Collet and her family are still considering their options. She wants an apology from the fire department, but does not want anybody to get fired. Collet suggested that procedures should be seriously re-examined.

Capt Shane · Oct 12, 2004, 05:15 PM

save another life, but they should have put a sheet over him... don't they have places to put bodies in the hospital anyways?

ManOfSteal · Oct 12, 2004, 05:17 PM

Wow, I'm surprised they didn't charge the family with a re-stocking fee...

the_glassman · Oct 12, 2004, 05:29 PM

I would have blamed her dad. It's his freaking fault he died. Doesn't anyone clean up their own messes anymore?

Atomic Rooster · Oct 12, 2004, 05:59 PM

As long as he keeps paying his bills is all.

ThinkInsane · Oct 12, 2004, 06:01 PM

When people die here, they stick them in the morgue until the funeral home comes to pick up the body or an autopsy is preformed. I've never heard about returning the body to where you found it

cold_reality · Oct 12, 2004, 06:09 PM

Ok, that is a lawsuit.
Pain and suffer + emotional trama = $$$

I understand the need for an ambulance but of the limited decisions that the paremdics could have made this was the worst.

"Lets just take him back to the house Tom."

Shocking, horrifing and disgusting all at the same time.

Twilly Spree · Oct 12, 2004, 06:18 PM

Originally posted by ThinkInsane:
When people die here, they stick them in the morgue until the funeral home comes to pick up the body or an autopsy is preformed. I've never heard about returning the body to where you found it

Same here. There are so many reasons for treating dead bodies with care. And respect. For the living and the dead.

We are stardust.. golden.

Xeo · Oct 12, 2004, 06:22 PM

So why wasn't it just taken to the morgue? Are people supposed to call the funeral home to get bodies taken care of themselves?

ManOfSteal · Oct 12, 2004, 06:39 PM

Originally posted by Atomic Rooster:
As long as he keeps paying his bills is all.

I just giggled...and then stopped shortly thereafter.

wdlove · Oct 12, 2004, 06:46 PM

That is a shocking way to treat the dead.

ringo · Oct 12, 2004, 07:30 PM

What's better? Using an ambulance to help someone who's dead, or using it to help someone's who's alive? I think they did the right thing with the ambulance, but they should have had another vehicle make the drive to the mourge instead of returning him to the house.

the_glassman · Oct 12, 2004, 07:32 PM

Originally posted by ringo:
What's better? Using an ambulance to help someone who's dead, or using it to help someone's who's alive? I think they did the right thing with the ambulance, but they should have had another vehicle make the drive to the mourge instead of returning him to the house.

Exactly the guys dead, he's not going to give a $hit. He no longer serves a useful purpose it's not like they just dropped off in the street or anything.

bstone · Oct 13, 2004, 01:32 AM

I'm an EMT and work on an ambulance. Let me try to give a professional side of this...

Paramedics can and at times do pronounce people dead "in the field". Mostly in rural cases where the transport to the hospital is long, if all efforts at resusciation fail then paramedics and EMTs can pronounce patients dead. In those cases, the person is left in the home, usually in bed made to look comfortable, and the family calls the funeral home, priest, etc.

In city situations, resusciation efforts cannot be terminated unless "online orders" are issued. That means, they call to their resource hospital, tell an attending physician what has happened, what they have done and all results. The attending physician can then order the EMTs to cease efforts or to transport with knowledge of it being a DOA.

There is a saying in the EMS field, "Nobody dies in my ambulance." This of course isn't true. It comes from most places and situations not allowing for a person to be pronounced in the field, but rather in an ER. What I mean by that is, the above two situations are somewhat rare.

But beginning transport, only to stop, return, and put the body on the floor at home is nuts! I have never heard of that. A couch, bed, or something and certainly goes out of their way to notify the family. Playing the alternative side, they were needed for an emergency elsewhere. What if that other patient died, but would have made it, only if that ambulance wouldn't have taken the time to transport a dead patient to the ER where nothing more could be done anyhow.

My only question is, is it against their protocol. Everything in EMS, I mean everything, is written up as protocol.

MilkmanDan · Oct 13, 2004, 08:07 AM

Maybe he had a 'return to sender' label on him.

Plus, I mean, dead bodies. From what I know about Japan, you spend the night sleeping in the same room as your dead relative the night before they're cremated.

Death is not something to be freaked out about. Its a natural part of life.

Gankdawg · Oct 13, 2004, 08:40 AM

Originally posted by cold_reality:
Ok, that is a lawsuit.

Yeah. That's the answer.

Why couldn't the fire department just take the body to the morgue and be done with it?

turtle777 · Oct 13, 2004, 11:48 AM

Originally posted by manofsteal:
Wow, I'm surprised they didn't charge the family with a re-stocking fee...

*LAWL*

-t

Buckaroo · Oct 13, 2004, 03:46 PM

I'm not sure if I got this right, but I recall hearing that the dead have no rights, or something like that.

Personaly, I believe they should have atleast left a note on the door, and/or have someone stand outside the door warning people until they could come back for him.

I believe they made the right choice. The other live person has presedence. It's not like the morque was going to be able to save his life. He was in no hurry.

It is possilbe that they saved a living person by delaying his pickup.