Due to the recent increase of violence against ambulances and their personnel in holland, the discussion was started if police officiers or guard ought to be added to the standard personnel list.

In yesterday's paper this cartoon[img=http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/3760/docwagonkq4.th.jpg] was published.

It looks a lot like the HTR units of DocWagon ariving in full mil-spec body armor and having an ares citymaster.

That looks really funny and leads me to another thing i never thougt of...what if you attack a DocWagon Team and get shot by them unless you have e.g. a Platinum Contract? Does the attack break your contract or do they have to get you out, too?

In an earlier sourcebook about DocWagon, they hinted at that sort of scenes simply creating more business for DocWagon - they shoot you to get their client out, and the next team shoots your enemies to get you out.

Hmmm....innovative way to create business instead of awaiting it to come to you.^^ Nice. Are there rumours about runners who are hired by DocWagon for such "accidents"?

There are now.

From what i've read in the "missions" sr3 book if a docwagon employee shoots someone they have to then bring in that person for treatment, willing or not, customer or not.

Oh god, I really hope we get an extraction-run in the next few sessions. I like this version of the good old "maintenance-crew, we have to check the vents in the high-security area". ^^

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...7032902126.html

So there you go, if you want to live the Shadowrun experience... Brazil's police department will likely be happy to hire you.

New positions opening daily.


From my perspective arming civilian EMS is a dodgy proposition for any number of reasons. Not the least of which is safety... And now a brief story.


During my first couple months as a firehouse EMT I got it in my head that I wanted a "rescue knife", a big honking knife with a recurved blade that I could use to cut through seatbelt buckles.
ZOMG! Knife!
Visions of heroically cutting patients out of burning vehicles flashed through my head. So I bought one off the net and promptly placed it in the small of my back on my service belt. Three nights later I got a classic military EMS call. 0200 HRS, patient down in hallway, drunk as hell and looking for all the world like he picked a fight with six guys... and lost. The patient recovered slightly during transport and was very upset that I was transporting him. He insisted he "Felt fine" and "Couldn't remember what happened to him." While I was trying to calm him down I had to adjust the O2 rate, a process that required me to turn my back. It was during this turn that I realized that I was shoving a 6 inch long blade into the face of a potentially combative patient who might suddenly want very badly to no longer be on my rig.

Needless to say the knife was quietly removed and now occupies a dusty spot on my dresser.

Further humor is added because it was later revealed that the guy who beat on my patient did so because my patient... tried to stab him during a cab ride.

The lesson I took home was: There are many dangerous things in a rig and keeping patients alive is hard. Adding weapons to the mix is a markedly bad idea. This idea is supported by the military which prevents us, typically, from carrying weapons into the areas where patients are treated. This is partly due to Geneva Convention regulations and partly because... it's just a solid idea.

Aaaaah, realism...can´t....stand.....it....*argh*^^ But quite an interesting story.

Well a service like DocWagon will exists if the world as a whole goes Brazil favella and healthcare never gets sorted out. EMS will either have to be armed, always have a police escort, or both. It'd be dangerous, a huge hassle, and a phenomenal waste of resources but if everything goes dark and gritty Gibson cyberpunk it'll become a reality.

But HTR could only exist with a service like DocWagon where you're billing a flat rate plus a service fee. No way you could keep an EMS service armed and staffed like that otherwise (unless you're the military of course)

Persoanlly, I'd have just gotten a folding knife with the same features and put it in a pocket. Substantially less likely to be taken away from you and substantially less conspicuous. Also, somewhat cheaper.

I remember seeing something similar to this (In a comic of all things), and did a bit more research long and ever ago.

Forgot completely about it, but thanks for reminding me. I'm going to have to get this for my Truck Driving Father: Not a Knife.

And, for something that can't be used as a weapon at all: The new model.

Absolutely... actually if I had half a brain I'd have purchased a device specifically designed to cut seatbelts safely. As it is I already carried a small folding knife, i just got it in my head I was going to be Billy Badass and carry around a stonking huge toad sticker.

Real idiot move and it could have ended very badly for me. "Hostage situation at the Lester ER, AFN news at 11"

But weapon retention is a big problem from what I understand. I've talked to people who work in jails and they usually tell me that only the wall guards have guns because the threat of a prisoner grabbing your weapon and shooting your ass is just too great. Patients aren't prisoners but the proximity is closer and people in an ambulance don't always think clearly.

@Canray: See that's a practical device and not something that a drunk guy is likely to stab you with

Exactly, the right tool for the right job.

And, yes, you're right about Corrections Workers. A lot of those guns are supposed to load "Low Lethality" rounds, IIRC, as well, not just because they're not supposed to kill the inmates, but on the off chance a violent offender gets ahold of one.

Police are VERY careful about firearms as well. You'll notice in those "World's Greatest" videos that they have their hand on their gun, and the hip with the Club/Tafon facing the person in the car most of the time (If they remember their training). That way, if the club goes away into a violent person's hand, they can back up and still have Mr. Glock to save the day.

If they can hit a stationary car with over fifty rounds fired, that is. (Note: Comment about one particular police agency!).

It's better to have tools with you, however. I know I'm getting a medical kit after I talk to the owner of the local Army Surplus place about it's contents. Hardly want something that's designed for Trained Field Medics when I can barely do a pressure bandage properly, eh?

Back to DocWagon:

Remember that DocWagon is not just the High-Risk Teams, they're also the regular Ambulance Service going to traffic accidents and heart attack victims.

Those guys probably just pack Colt L36s and the like for personal defence, and there's only a Turreted LMG on the Van-Style Ambulance controlled by the Rigger Driver. With SMGs or Assault Rifles locked away just in case some gangers decide to try and jack the "Fun Drugs" inside.

Oh yeah... I'm sure all DocWagon medics roll armed. A DocWagon rig is just such a fat... delicious.... target *eyes glaze over with lust*

Er... right. Where was I? It makes sense that they would have a weapons locker just like real ambulances have a narcotics locker. Shit hits the fan and out come the Ingram Smartguns (or whatever they use).


As to getting a good medical kit. You might want to look on the net and buy the bag separately and the parts a'la carte. Like you said there's no reason to run around with shit you don't need or know how to use. That said most of the surplus medical kits I've seen are usually pretty basic (they're usually the individual kits, not the ones the actual corpsman/medics carry) so you'll probably be alright.

I personally recommend going through a CPR/First Responder course (or whatever quackery they practice in Canada )... They're usually no more than a couple of days long and it'll give you a good basic grasp of what to do besides panic or tourniquet somones neck.

If you do buy a kit but extra of everything and pratice with them Nothing is worse than breaking open the box of save-your-life only to realize you aren't entirely sure which end is which. In particular (if you buy military) they have these really awesome pressure dressings that have a little hook on one side. You can just tie the dressing onto a patient but if you read the instructions and use the hook correctly you can really crank that baby down and keep it there. I'd also recommend against getting quickclot or other crazy hemostatic agents. I don't think non-medical types are supposed to own them and there's a number of considerations for their application.

Honestly, calling EMS, CPR, direct pressure, and band-aids will get you through just about everything you should be concerned with. You don't really need a super med kit for that.

Oh! And trauma shears! I cannot overstate how awesome good trauma shears are. They'll cut through damn near anything (they'll cut pennies for instance) and they don't dull very easily (unless you cut pennies ;p)

Cash cash cash and personal issues prevent me from doing any schooling any time in the future, and keeps me from doing the "Full On Kit" properly. Hense the cheap "Army Surplus" route. Figured it would have everything I could use on my own, and there we go.

One thing I also can do is get a kit bag from the army surplus store, and they have a few of those "One-Use Field Dressing" bandages that every soldier is supposed to carry, just get those, and a few other odds and sods. You have given me a few good things to think of, however!

And not about to play with chemicals other than iodine or some other sterilizing agent. (And, worse comes to worst, I might just buy a bottle of high-test, bad whiskey that I'll never drink. But Iodine is easy enough to come across.).

Ordered the Keychain Lifehammer for my Father. He's a Truck Driver, and comes across accidents far too often. He's been driving for years as well. Like, back when the ONLY help you could count on happening in a Canadian Highway was a Truck Driver, and he knows when to, and when not to, pull someone from a wreck.

(CARS DO NOT BLOW UP! They can BREW up, but that takes special conditions that, if you know what to look for... No pulling potential neck and back injury victims out of cars "To get them away from the inevitable explosion"!).

As the Para-Meds aren't probably Cybered (Even with Smartlinks), they probably have the Colt Cobras with either the Built-In Laser Sights or the Compensators (Compact and reliable. Good bullpup SMGs!), and a single M-23 (Basic modern assault rifles) in the lockers. Maybe replace the M-23 with a Defiance T-250 in some Busses at crew's request.

Gah... booze is not for sterilizing damnit! Get some fucking rubbing alcohol, it's like 2 bucks at a convenience store. Honestly you'll do just fine with a bottle of sterile water and a sharp point (bottle+sharp point=squeeze bottle cleaning). Failing sterile water you can fake it with bottled. It's amazing how much ass warm water and soap kicks... it really is. Iodine is good (really good) but there are two problems:
1. People with shell fish allergies=Bad Day™ with iodine
2. Iodine kills stuff as it dries, not as it's applied (unlike alcohol). So if you use it, slop it on there then sit and watch the paint dry.

Again, I cannot reiterate how good clean water under pressure is (the gentle pressure of a squeeze bottle not like... a firehose).

Ah and gloves obviously, no point getting yourself sick.

I will note that cars, especially the interiors, burn really well. I've never head of one blowing up though.

Brew up = Flames. There's a small "Fireball" from gas fumes. (This is where the idea that they blow up comes from, but you can do the same thing with a BBQ and just singe your eyebrows off.). The term came from the old Shermans, IIRC, the "Ronson" models. "Lights first time, every time."

Rubbing Alcohol, gotcha, thank you. I'll get that instead of Iodine. And I think I'll get it at a pharmacy and not be totally ghetto.

Now, how about the Shadow-Versions of DocWagon. Black Cross I think their name was, the Anarcistic Paramedics and group of Clinics?

What would their loadout be? Other than anything they can get?

They may perhaps not even exist anymore or indeed deep in shadows - concurrence to Doc Wagon and other corporations dealing the same way...

Good ideas potentialy for unusual runs there, no?

Military surplus Seriously, like next to their box of Ak-107 they have quickclot from the Gulf War. Is that like the Desert Wars? Well, it's in the same place think but...


Anyways... it really depends on how deep their service is. If they have places to get patients too (like a network of grey or black clinics) they might be able to fake it with next to nothing really. More likely I'd imagine they probably have a "shop" in their vehicles and do all the care before dropping you in a dark alley of your choosing (or forest or... whatever).

Another idea is that they have response rigs, cabs basically, and the actual clinic is in a big van(s) that moves around and pays off the right people. It's a good deal because it'd be harder to trace exactly where Runner X is going to when a cab rolls up and suddenly drags him off into the night. If a bunch of people with contracts go down then the whole "clinic" can come out to you and render service to you enroute to "Not here".

As far as gear? They probably have what we have now, which means it's stupidly out of date for 2070. "Jesus Christ look at the size of that defribraltor! It's like an oven! Good god! It doesn't even have an AR interface!" etc etc. Probably a lot of out of date gear cobbled together from a bunch of different sources.

And duct tape, lots of duct tape.

Probably just the basics, bandages, spray skin, cardiac drugs, maybe some cheap nanotech. Just enough to keep you alive and get you somewhere safe.

Of course that all depends on their client base too. To they cater to high class runners who can't risk a Doc Wagon contract? Or do they cater to gutter runners who can't afford Doc Wagon?

ld it be irresponsible of me to recommend stocking a first aid kit with morphine syrettes because you never know when you'll need one?

Why... why do you need morphine? Do I want to know why you need morphine?

The situations where you'd give a person morphine are very few while the situations where you wouldn't, are numerous. Morphine hardly belongs in a first aid kit because morphine isn't something you give during "first aid". It's something you give to someone because you aren't going anywhere for awhile or because they're so boned that it's the least you can do for them.

Yeah, Morphine is the stuff you give to the guys that have been turned into a Collander and won't stop screaming.

As for Black Cross' client base... The SINless. Most can't pay cash, but services certainly. And those that can pay cash, pay about as much, if not more, than DocWagon.

Also, DocWagon doesn't cover everywhere. I'm sure they have a "One-Try" clause for the Deepest Darkest Barrens, whereas that's where Black Cross LIVES.

And I just love the idea of the Knight Rider Transport Truck rigged up like a mobile hospital...

Most people in pain would appreciate it. From personal experience, it is much better to use a painkiller that is more powerful than necessary than it is to treat horrific pain with a glorified aspirin.

For an MI after popping nitro and chewing your asprin? Hopefully you have an oxygen supply in that medkit too...

I think that if the ambulance has to go into a rough part of town to administer medical aid, then it is more than feasible for DocWagon to have some armored cars and troops transporting them, more so if the victim has an expensive contract.

And since Shadowrunners are the most likely to be rich and living in the Barrens, it is also feasible for the armed help to be SWAT equivalents, not Lone Star beat cops.

Now we're getting into the "High Threat Responce" teams.

Citymasters with dual turrets (MMGs or HMGs, or Light Gattlings with heavy loadout), Light MilSpec Armour for the EMTs, SMGs minimum, Assault Rifles more likely at the ready, and a heavy weapon locked up just in case (Probably a Enfield GL-67 as the team won't need to move far), and these guys will have some Cyber (Or Cyber-equivilents built into helmets) for Smartguns and other items.

You're paying for these teams, gentlemen, and paying highly! Including any deaths that happen when they come to pull your hoop out of the firefight!

For those areas that can't be gotten to by road, we're talking a DocWagon CRT Helo (Arsenal, Page 116) with Drones to secure the area as the SWAT EMTs rapell down and secure the area with extreme prejudice!

AFTER the area has been secured by a couple of good, long bursts from the EX-Ex/Tracer Ammo-Equipped Gattling Gun!

You're paying even more for this one, but, hey, you might be on "DocWagon's Most Dangerous Rescues" on the Trid! So it's not all bad!

Eh... I just worry that people like to jump straight to the heavy pain meds without considering what they're really good for: making the pain go away. Morphine doesn't cure anything it just makes it hurt less. Morphine following trauma can possibly cause you to: A.) Stop breathing/ Breathe poorly. B.) Make that head injury fantastically fatal. C.) Pass the fuck out and into a vegative state (Linked to and complicated by interactions between the first two things).

They do give morphine for MI pain, but they do that when your either on the way to the hospital or in the hospital. In both those cases you have people watching you and you are surrounded by equipment that'll keep you breathing should you stop. Morphine isn't on "The List of Things That Help You Survive An MI", it just makes it less shitty. If you're prone to MI's you should really think about acquiring an AED and a good cellphone, because those are the only two things that are going to actually save your ass (and your heart).

The situations where you, in a home setting, should be shooting up morphine syrettes like a bad WWII movie are pretty limited. Long term pain management? Maybe. Short term first aid kit/emergency? Probably not. I would of course like to know what Hyz's personal experience on this matter was. There are always exceptions to the rules but I'm not coming up with any right now.



But enough of my penny-ante opinionating. Shadowrun!
I think DocWagon probably uses drones extensively, especially for non-HTR responses (ie heart attacks and car crashes). Drones can get out there faster and more safely, scoop the patient up and spirit them away to wherever their cred sticks can get them into. For car crashes in particular I can see a modified valkeriye drone swooping down from the heavens, starting basic trauma management and beginning to hack the patient out of their vehicle. A couple minutes later flesh and blood techs show up and finish the job. Using drones mean that DW can cutdown on a lot of their overhead and keep only a small number of actual ambulances rolling around and an even smaller number of HTR units ready to rock. Drones could also be dispatched for basic medical calls and transport jobs.
"Good afternoon Mr. McCallister, I am from DocWagon and I'm here to help. Can you walk to me or shall I roll a little closer?"

The problem with Drones is that they don't have that "Friendly Touch" that you get with people. Even with a Rigger controlling it.

For some circumstances, yes, it'd be great to have an army of drones. Major collisions for example. Or, like one of my Character's history, where everyone in a 160-Year Old, Fireproof Theater was the victim of a terrorist attack, and had the building land on them. But there'll still be people around.

There's bottom line, but there's also PR. It's a thin line for a service industry like DocWagon.

Also, ARMED drones flying into help people wouldn't exactly be happy things to see, and those Drones would be targets at only slightly less than a DocWagon Bus.

So, in essence, they'd be likely kept for emergency useage, or in areas where they can't get enough trained EMTs, and then have a EMT/Drone team do the work, with the Drone doing the heavy lifting.

DocWagon owns itself (AA-Rated Corp), and has to be self-supportive.

CrashCart, on the other hand, can do with Drones and the like. They're owned by Evo (And heavily pushed now that it's been almost 20-years since that whole Bug Incident in Seattle that gave them bad press. Who remembers that?), and the TransHumanism push would make them show "Drones/Free Spirits/AIs/Technomancers are your Friends!" PR push for that.

So, DocWagon for good, ol' fashioned Bedside Manner...

CrashCart for brutal efficiency and quick responce (Hoverdrones don't need to worry as much about stairs when the elevator is out.).

Regarding weapons for DocWagon personell : i'd say that for these, or any other group legally carrying weapons in public areas as part of their profession, the weapon safety systems from Arsenal would be highly interesting.

As far as the "shadow version of DocWagon" is concerned, that's the Anarchist Black Crescent (the AB+ sets up safehouses for political refugees and the like).

Their patients tend to be the kind of people who can't afford DW contracts, SINles people in the Barrens who have no other access to medical service.
Hardly a competition for DW.

I have to disagree with my esteemed colleague Canray here. I think that in SR drones are an accepted part of life and for most services people are just fine with them. No on cries if the mail man isn't human and I think people will cry less when the cab driver doesn't talk to damn much. Sure there will be niche's that demand flesh and blood interaction (those niches are called "Platinum Contracts") but generally people could be convinced to see Doc Wagon service like ordering off Amazon.com2070. You speed dial off your commlink and 10 minutes later a drone is there to pick you up (literally if necessary) and take you straight to a hospital or clinic.

Beyond that it makes enough financial sense that Doc Wagon could plow all the money they save into a marketing campaign touting their new "Improved Automatic Response! We get there fastest!". I was also thinking that drones serve all those A+ areas that probably aren't going to see an armed response anyways. They can use the "ambient" security of those upscale areas to their benefit. If the Star patrols regularly why bother sending a huge armed response everywhere your rigs run? Esoteric arguments aside, drones are by the BBB pretty damn cheap to run and even cheaper if you have the economies of scale that Doc Wagon has.

All I'm saying is that IRL more than half (sometimes higher) of ambulance calls are actually boring shit like routine transfers or what amount to house calls. Driving a rig back and forth to all those calls is kind of a waste because you don't need all that highspeed trauma stuff to get a non-trauma patient from their retirement home to the hospital. There's also the issue of unit availability, if a rig takes 20 minutes to get to a patient and 20 minutes to get to the hospital, it's no available to do anything else during that time. Glorified taxi cab really... but it pays, some companies make most of their revenues off transfers (You charge your normal rates but you're not blowing all that money on supplies. Additionally these are scheduled transfers so you know their credit is good.) In 2070 an org like DW could be making bank by having an automated transfer system that amounts to taxi cabs with a patient lifting drone and medical supplies. Overheads would be low, coverage would be up and your meat assets are freed up for "real" calls that involve the delicate touch of a 9mm burst.

Morphine can still be useful in non-shockable rhythms and when you live far from the hospital. I'm not arguing that your points on potential abuse are not accurate (except for the respiratory part - your typical 2-4mg IV should not have this effect unless there's unusual sensitivity), but it can still be useful.

My personal experience was with kidney stones, admittedly not life-threatening, but certainly a horrifically painful emergency. There is nothing quite like waiting for several hours in a hospital for a doctor to prescribe a half-assed oral pain killer, then vomiting that up as soon as it is swallowed, waiting nearly another hour for the nurses to call the doctor and get permission for something injectable, and then finding out that the injection doesn't actually work very well at all, leaving you in excruciating pain for several more hours until you can contact a specialist who more than happy to break out the hardcore opiates. And after that I don't remember much but I can assure you that I wasn't in pain even though there was eventually a mechanical claw involved in the removal process. I also learned that hospitals will let you sign a great many legal documents while so high on opiates that you can't possibly understand them.
If they just skipped to the good stuff, it would have saved me a great deal of discomfort.

Most people appreciate not being in pain. It isn't appropriate in all situations, certainly not in the case of head trauma, but for most sorts of acute pain the patient will appreciate it. It may not be necessary, but it is a decent courtesy. It may a good idea to wait if the cause of the pain is unidentified for diagnostic purposes, but once the cause of the pain is obvious, whethit it be a kidney stone or a landmine having blown of one of your legs and half of the other, or a terrible limb-mangling steamroller accident, falling into a Mustafarian volcano, a backyard fireworks accident, or being boomsticked by a man with chainsaw hand, why wait?

Not all hospitals are that way. I had a hell of a time getting a consent after a patient had taken a single Lortab 5 almost 12 hours earlier. The standard was to wait 24 hours since the last narcotic...

Instead we got phone consent from her husband... his Alzheimers dementia didn't seem to matter at all.

However, while working in psych I was amazed at what they would let a committed patient sign his way into...

reminds me of something i think i read regarding either iraq or afghanistan.

"first they shoot us, then they treat our wounds?!"

this was supposedly stated by a surprised enemy soldier or something being treated by a medic after the fightning had stopped...

<Edit: Eh... looks like we're not really arguing about the same thing here. Oh well, I had so much fun typing terrible things about Canray that I got... absorbed...>

*Confers with the pharmtech down the hall*
Morphine can be used to relax the heart into a shockable rhythm, it is also true that it doesn't make you stop breathing instantly. But if you were in the sort of trauma that generates pain deserving of morphine you may very well be in a situation where self administration might not be a good idea. If you aren't trained to recognize those bad situations than you very likely might make some poor decisions.


My main point is to point out that this conversation stemmed from the question: "What should go into a home medical kit for a non-medical person?" I think it's negligent to suggest that someone without serious medical training put narcotics in their medicine cabinet "Just in case". If you want to get some prescription drugs that might save your life might I suggest a full run of good antibiotics (that you aren't allergic too and that you understand how to use. Ie. You don't pop one whenever you get a headache) or some loperamide. But we run into the same problem. Can a non-medical person correctly identify when they have a bacterial vs. a viral infection? Do they care?

Honestly the only "drugs" I'd stock in a generic med kit is acetaminophen, ibuprofen, triple anti-biotic cream (Neosporin), whatever drugs you need to survive (epinephrine, glucose paste, extra insulin the fridge of course), and this:
Oral Rehydration Solution. Now with bananas!
It works, it works really well. It's cheap, stores easily, and helps treat one of the most common side effects of natural disaster. In a pinch you can mix up your own from household goods. It's a slick hack.


Maybe I'm way off but the scenario I see is this:
*Grabs CanRay*

Mr. Can Ray is puttering around his house when a stray .50 caliber round from an American gangbanger rockets across the border, punches through his wall, and promptly shatters his right femur. Blood begins to gush out of the gaping wound and he promptly rips off his shirt (revealing rippling literary muscles) and begins to apply direct pressure.

Mr. Ray is having a bad day.

Mr. Ray crawls, probably screaming, to his easily accessible home medical kit and pops it open. He pulls out a surplus battle dressing and presses it over his completely blood soaked shirt. Working quickly Mr. Ray secures the tails of the dressing around what's left of his leg. Disaster is adverted for the moment. Weary from extensive blood loss Mr. Ray drags himself over to a local phone-moose and dials for Emergency Medical Services. They arrive promptly, congratulate Mr. Ray on his quick thinking (undoubtedly the result of years of Shadowrunning), and take him to the hospital where he makes a full recovery.

The high points of this worst case scenario are:
Mr. Ray is untrained in medicine. If he is alone, and faced with an medical emergency, he's going to rely upon his wits and his common sense to carry him through. Without giving him real training (which would be preferable) I would like to give him as little to think about as possible. Perhaps more important, I would also like to remove as many non-essential variables as possible. I want him to have a simple medical kit with only a handful of materials all of which he is clear on what they do and how to use them. Bandages are simple, battle dressings are simple, clean water is simple. I would argue that morphine is at best, extraneous and at worst, a distracter. If he'd opened his medkit, eye wild with pain, and gazed upon an autoinjector of morphine he might have thought, "Oh man! This hurts real bad! I'll be able to help myself better if it doesn't hurt so bad!" 2mg of morphine later he's feeling better but he's also kinda of out of it and zzzz... And our dear Mr. Ray wakes up dead in a pool of his own precious bodily fluids.

Yeah it's an extreme and unlikely example but that's basically how I think of morphine. If you're fucked up enough to need morphine you probably shouldn't be giving it to yourself.

There are other scenarios of course. Mr. Ray is trapped in his house following a natural disaster. Mr Ray gets in a car crash. Mr. Ray cuts his hand off with gardening tools. Mr. Ray is attacked by wild dogs and rabid school girls. Mr. Ray eats something that almost kills him. Etc. I'm just failing to see a scenario where Mr. Ray will benefit spectacularly for keeping morphine in house or on his person.

Well okay, one scenario... maybe. Mr. Ray lives near the Arctic Circle and 100 miles from the nearest human being. Mr. Ray indulges in such pastimes as Kodiak wrestling and base jumping from large trees (or he's a lumberjack... but I wanted to avoid the stereotype). Mr. Ray finds himself horrifically injured on a regular basis but he's such a stupendous badass and independent soul that he sets his own bones and has never seen a doctor in his life. Mr. Ray, by virtue of wrestling bears, has demonstrated... nay, earned the right, to self administer narcotics. Very likely he doesn't though... because it'll dull his wits when he needs to kickbox Chuck Norris for the bed.

So yes, if you're off in the middle of nowhere caring for yourself with the intention of caring for yourself... forever, than stocking some morphine might not be a bad idea. There I said it. I can accept that morphine might belong in the basic medkit of a mystical lumberjack ninja.

...

*blink*

So anyway, this talk about shadowy DocWagon competitors has made me think of an awesome scenario: our heroes are on a fairly standard run, which swiftly devolves into a shootout with what they think are some security personell - but turn out to be another team here for an entirely different purpose. Casualties are suffered by both sides, and they find themselves in a stalemate, while our heroes wait for DocWagon to arrive.

And when DocWagon bursts in through the door behind them, a strikingly similar team in different uniforms arrives through the skylight...

Hilarity ensues.

Oh come on! Waking up dead! It's every runners deepest fear!

Well that and dragons.

Mr. Ray knows what to do if Mr. Ray eats something bad. (Mr. Ray has taken Food Safety Courses and helped train a Journeyman-Grade Chef.).

Mr. Ray also lives in a place that's even harsher than the Arctic Circle weather-wise. Even if there's more people here.

(Mr. Ray swears that the most insane Europeans settled here. Even the First Nations people that used Winnipeg originally only did so for trading, then got the hell out before the mosquitoes and winter hit!).

Mr. Ray's next character in Shadowrun, were Mr. Ray ever to be able to PLAY will be a Mystical Lumberjack Ninja from a far-off Monistary in Northern Ontario.

To see you play a Mystical Adept Lumberjack Ninja I would almost be willing to travel to distant and distressingly cold Northern Ontario.

There are several EMS services that are run by police, with armed police working as paramedics.

"Since 1974, the Cottage Grove Police Department has been a pioneer of providing emergency medical services through a police-based paramedic service, and is one of only 3 departments in the state of Minnesota whose officers perform this unique dual-role service. Its paramedic officers provide Advanced Life Support medical treatment through Cottage Grove EMS, operated by the Cottage Grove Department of Public Safety.

"The department has 22 Paramedic Police Officers, with a minimum of 2 paramedics on patrol, 24 hours a day. Paramedic Police Officers carry a full set of advanced life support first responder gear which includes oxygen, airway/intubation kit, a Lifepak 12 cardiac monitor/defibrillator/external pacemaker, and a comprehensive medication kit. Paramedic Officers respond to the scene of a medical emergency in their patrol vehicles and with this equipment are able to begin treatment before the ambulance arrives."

Winnipeg.

I haven't been living in Northern Ontario for almost four years now.

...

Over four years now.

Damn, where does the time go?

*Pokes the Vortex Dunkie left* Does it go in here?

First let me back up and say "Oops, that was a pretty stupid thing to say in the way I did."
"Given a private ambulance companies massive overhead it's not currently profitable to run armed rigs like DocWagon HTR is described to have."

Teaching cops EMS isn't a new concept but it's one that is growing in popularity. I'd also point out that teaching a police officer how to perform EMS functions is different than arming EMS workers for their and their patients security. Furthermore, the Cottage Grove Polce, Fire, and EMS are all integrated and administered under a single "command". This sharing of EMS responsibilities and resources is actually a pretty solid idea and one that I think has a lot of merit in the right situations (If I recall, it's very efficient for rural EMS delivery). Fire, and more recently police, fight to integrate EMS under them because it allows them to demand a much larger budget without significantly increasing their staffing requirements. It also makes a fair bit of sense given that Fire and Police constantly respond to situations that need an EMS response anyways. Being able to initiate advanced treatment as quickly as possible is almost as important as getting patients to definitive care (ie. the hospital) as rapidly as possible.* There are concerns about this practice (EMS: the red-headed stepchild of the other "Public Services") but a discussion of that is... long and fairly dry unless you're rabid about EMS systems administration .

Another difference is in the last sentence you quote: Paramedic officers BEGIN treatment before the ambulance arrives. That indicates that these police paramedics lack transport capabilities. The pages I looked at indicated that these 22 paramedic officers were used almost exclusively for patrolling duties, ie they drive police cruisers not amublances.

At any rate, the system described is totally unlike a pay-for-service/subscription, dedicated private EMS system that just so happens to carry guns and use armed helos. I would be very interesting to see how their billing works (Do they bill separately for on-scene care provided by parapolice versus enroute care provided by fire EMS?) but I'm fairly certain they aren't operating at a profit (just within their state/city mandated budget, if they're lucky).




*Maybe. There is evidence that suggests that rendering advanced care like ACLS isn't as important as simply getting the patient to the hospital. It's been demonstrated that our EMS system's "Load and Go" approach has better outcomes than other systems "Stay and Play approach. From the military side of the house I can confirm that the greatest improvement to battlefield survival came from the introduction of more effecient evacuation systems rather than fancy tech like quickclot and what not. Those certainly help but the fact that we went from taking days to evac the wounded to taking hours has made a tremendous impact on survival and recovery rates. In fact it's generally recognized that medical personnel returning from the Korean War, and later Vietnam, were instrumental in founding our modern EMS system. They complained quiet loudly that a soldier shot in a foreign country had better chances of survival than someone hit by a car in America.

I'd also say that the previous system of staffing ambulances with morticians not EMS workers might have had something to do with that.

I also remember hearing about a number of cases back home (Not sure about other cities), where EMS guys had to wait in the Bus for the Cops to show up to secure a scene of a violent offence.

Sometimes for almost a half-hour.

In almost every case, the guy was LONG gone, and the victim bled out while still talking to 911, wondering where help was.

Outside her door, chomping at the bit to save a life, and held back because it was "Too dangerous to enter."

In a lot of ways, I'm all for DocWagon.

sounds sadly familiar, canray.

i would say that the issue is that recent generations have gotten the image of cops as a bad thing, and dont want them around (until they need them to bail them out of some disagreement with another party, probably over something shady). but EMS they want available 24/7, so that they can do their "extreme sports"/jackass kind of thing and know that if they go "oh crap!" they can be rescued in seconds.

sometimes i seriously wonder about this addiction to youth that western society has...

A large town (Rio Rancho) had a public safety organization when it organized in 1981, where people were all police, FF and medics. They have disbanded that and now have a fire dept with EMS and a police dept. Apparently it's hard to find people who want to do fire and police. For that matter, it's hard to find people who want to do EMS and Fire, judging from comments of classmates. Many will do the fire stuff because it pays better and has much better benies, but a lot of PMs really have no interest in the running into burning building crap, and I've been told that a lot of FFs really don't want to do anything other then run into burning buildings.

It is an "efficient" idea, but I'm not sure it's really a great idea. One of the issues that EMTs have mentioned is the difficulty of protecting a weapon when treating patients. I'll have to talk to the nurse who used to work for RR as a cop/PM and see how that worked for him.

But they do exist in some places and people seem happy with them.

under those conditions some kind of iff system for weapons make sense.

I'll buy a weapon authentication system two years after the FBI, DEA, CPD, HPD, NYPD, USSS and USMS convert to them for all officers and nobody has died because of it.

as in, long term or short term?

that is, nobody died from having their own gun turned on them, or nobody died from having a person steal their gun, run away and then use the gun to shoot someone later?

i can see it work as a kind of "wtf?!" for a person that goes for the gun as a kind of last resort, buying the owner a moment to attempt to overpower the opponent.

but for lost weapons, where whoever grabbed it had time to take it to someone that could rip the system out of there, nah...

another issue i guess would be how much more of a delay, if any, the system presents in a surprise situation where the gun is holstered at the start...

The Biggest problem with such authentication systems is logistics. In any large organization, it is inevitable that someone will be issued a weapon that he cannot fire. Moreover, it makes weapon sharing in the field much more difficult, if not impractically so.

The second problem is failure to fire for an authorized user, either due to glitch, bug, user error, or simple mechanical failure. Such systems are not perfect, and they do greatly the probability that an authorized user is unable to fire, in some situations greatly so. Anything that makes the weapon more complex, and that makes firing it more complex, will inevitably increase the incidence of failure.

In situations where such situations would actually provide some security, close-quarters encounters with potentially violent unarmed individuals, it is far simpler to just remove the magazine from your weapon and clear its chamber.