Paramedics

Baltimore City paramedics are being trained in the use of endotracheal intubation, an emergency life-saving procedure expected to save "hundreds of lives a year."In the procedure, a tube is inserted into the throat to help remove obstacles from the esophagus and open airways so that oxygen can be quickly pumped into the lungs before any physical damage can occur.The procedure reduces the risk of brain damage or death and prevents the buildup of deadly acid in the body."The No. 1 priority of all medical teaching and practice is optimal management of the airway," said Dr. Richard Alcorta, acting emergency medical services director of the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems (MIEMSS)

A fire truck and ambulance collided as they were headed to a building fire Friday night, sending two paramedics to the hospital. Around 8 p.m., two Baltimore City Fire Department units - Engine Company 13 and Medic 15 - were responding to a fire in the 700 block of Lennox St. when they smashed into each other at the intersection of West North Ave. and Park Ave., according to a statement from Chief Kevin Cartwright, a spokesman for the fire...

Baltimore paramedics have won a victory from the city's Board of Estimates, which cleared the way for them to join the same retirement system as city police and firefighters and retire after 20 years of service.The move is a victory for Baltimore Firefighters Local 734, which has been battling to get its paramedic members into the same retirement unit as their fellow firefighters. The unit represents 143 paramedics.Those workers will "get a better pension over the long haul" than they would under the Employment Retirement System that applies to other civilian city employees, said Lonnie D. Jackson, an official with the union.

Paramedics in Harford County rushed a 21-year-old Jarrettsville woman to a hospital Wednesday night for a possible overdose. Emergency crews were dispatched in response to a call that came in at 7:44 p.m. for a woman in the 4000 block of Federal Hill Road, who had possibly overdosed, according to police. The woman was found with a hypodermic needle and transported by paramedics, according to Monica Worrell, a Harford County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman. No further information was available.

Amid complaints that Anne Arundel County paramedics are dangerously overworked, County Executive Janet S. Owens has authorized fire officials to hire 10 new ones. The paramedics will replace 10 firefighters - not all of whom work as paramedics - who have retired since July 1, Division Chief John M. Scholz said. Chief Roger C. Simonds still plans to leave vacant 18 positions as part of the county's cost-savings measures, Scholz said. "We know we need paramedics," he said. "The chief's been concerned about their situation for quite some time."

When Vi Wirtz, an 83-year-old Parkville resident, suffered a stroke, she could not speak clearly enough to give important medical information to paramedics. Instead, she directed them to the bright orange card on her refrigerator that contained everything the emergency responders needed to know - her medical conditions, medications and contact information. Last week, Wirtz joined Baltimore County Executive James T. Smith Jr., a Fire Department paramedic unit and staff from the county's Department of Aging to announce a program for free distribution of the orange cards and pill organizers.

Officials from the nation's largest organization representing emergency medical personnel said mistakenly declaring a victim dead - as was the case in Northwest Baltimore this weekend - is rare but not unheard of. Jerry Johnston, the immediate past president of the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians, said statistics are not kept on the number of these incidents, but he is aware of cases in which someone was initially declared dead,...

A fire truck and ambulance collided as they were headed to a building fire Friday night, sending two paramedics to the hospital. Around 8 p.m., two Baltimore City Fire Department units - Engine Company 13 and Medic 15 - were responding to a fire in the 700 block of Lennox St. when they smashed into each other at the intersection of West North Ave. and Park Ave., according to a statement from Chief Kevin Cartwright, a spokesman for the fire...

A federal court decision awarding Anne Arundel County paramedics overtime pay could create new difficulties in a county with a tax ceiling and a Fire Department that spends more on overtime than any other department.Retroactive pay for the 143 paramedics who brought the lawsuit could add nearly $4 million to the EMS/Fire/Rescue budget of $46.6 million, officials said. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals decision, rendered Feb. 18 in Richmond, Va., could open the door to suits for overtime by firefighters who give medical aid.The ruling's possible repercussions could change the Fire Department's structure and harden distinctions between firefighters and paramedics that the fire chief has struggled to obliterate.

Anne Arundel County must pay nearly $3 million in overtime compensationwithheld from paramedics since the late 1980s in violation of federal labor laws, according to a federal court ruling.Senior U.S. District Judge Walter E. Black ruled last summer in favor of the paramedics, who sued to receive time-and-a-half pay for work over 40 hours in a week.But the amount of compensation to be paid was not resolved until Jan. 19, when Judge Black held that Anne Arundel County must pay each of the 128 paramedics affected by the decision amounts ranging from $1,600 to $48,000.

A 62-year-old blind man has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice claiming Baltimore paramedics refused to allow his service dog to accompany him in an ambulance after he was struck by a car. Curtis Graham Jr., a Marine who served in Vietnam, was on his way to the city's Veterans Day parade on Nov. 11 when he was hit by a car near his West Baltimore home. Paramedics would not allow Indo, his 2-year-old golden Labrador retriever, into the ambulance, Graham said. "They refused to take a service animal who I need very much," said Graham, who suffered minor injuries.

Maybe they were desperate for Carolina-style pulled pork or St. Louis-style ribs. Or maybe they had heard about the 32 taps and the new bourbon bar inside Kloby's Smokehouse in Laurel. But at the exact moment Kloby's owners Michele and Steve Klobosits got the last of their approvals and were allowed to open their doors, a group of 40 people was waiting outside — one group of 40 people. The Klobositses were ready for them. It takes a lot to ruffle Michele Klobosits, who sounded serene and calm about opening her family's expanded barbecue restaurant on the Fourth of July weekend.

The mother of a 7-year-old boy killed while trying to cross Belair Road in Northeast Baltimore on his way home Friday afternoon said she rushed to the scene after her older son ran to tell her what happened, but it was too late. "His eyes were open" Shira Lee-Coates, the mother, said, as her son, Jayviahn Billinger of the 3100 block Mareco Ave. lay in the street. "He wasn't moving. No [paramedics] were there yet. I saw my son, lying in the street. I lay beside him" until Fire Department paramedics came, she said.

Lt. Larry Trump plans to retire this year after 41 years with the Baltimore County Fire Deparment, and on his way he's picking up a state award for his service as a paramedic. Trump, 62, who has served with both the county department and the Owings Mills Volunteer Fire Co., is receiving the Leon W. Hayes Award for Excellence in emergency medical services from the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems. He'll be receiving the award Thursday in Annapolis. A resident of Glyndon now assigned to the Garrison station, Trump became a paramedic in the 1970s.

In a broad effort to speed treatment of heart attack victims in Baltimore, five area hospitals are distributing hand-held devices to every paramedic unit in the city that can transmit patients' heart rhythms, or EKGs, to the hospital before they arrive. Doctors have 90 minutes to open an artery after someone shows symptoms of a serious heart attack before survival becomes far less assured. The hand-held units, which can send information straight to a cardiologist's smart phone, could speed up that treatment by as much as 15 minutes, research shows.

The daughter of a Prince George's County man who was mistakenly left for dead by paramedics Friday said she and her mother had already notified relatives when she learned from a medical examiner that he was, in fact, alive. George Waters, 70, ultimately died Saturday evening at Prince George's Hospital Center, according to his daughter, Laverne Waters. "Now I'm going through the emotions again," Waters said Saturday in a hospital hallway, hours before her father died. "I wouldn't wish that on anyone, to go through what I went through yesterday."

Anne Arundel County must pay nearly $3 million in overtime compensation withheld from paramedics since the late 1980s in violation of federal labor laws, according to a federal court ruling.Senior U.S. District Judge Walter E. Black ruled last summer in favor of the paramedics, who had sued to receive time-and-a-half pay for work exceeding 40 hours in a week.But the compensation to be paid was not resolved until Jan. 19, when Judge Black ordered that Anne Arundel County pay each of the 128 paramedics affected by the decision amounts ranging from $1,600 to $48,000.

A federal appeals court has ruled that Anne Arundel County must pay its paramedics overtime, a decision local officials say could have a "staggering" impact on their budgets.The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Annapolis ruled in a case brought by 143 Anne Arundel paramedics that they cannot be classified as firefighters. That classification would have exempted them from federal laws requiring overtime after a 40-hour work week.The court awarded the paramedics lost overtime pay, interest on the payments back to 1988 and attorney's fees.

Two fire engines, including one just purchased for $600,000, two paramedic units, a brush truck and a U.S. Army Humvee were destroyed in an early morning fire at a Dundalk firehouse, according to a department spokesman. The two-alarm blaze that began shortly after 3 a.m. caused the roof to collapse at the Engine 6 building at Dunman Way and Merritt Boulevard, a block from the Dundalk Middle School. A cause of the fire remains under investigation, said spokesman Kyrle Preis. Officials said firefighters sleeping in the firehouse's living quarters, which is next to the fire engine bay, awoke to the sound of a fire alarm.

With mounds of snow making Baltimore sidewalks impassable Saturday, many pedestrians took to the middle of the streets, following paths carved by plows or trucks. And that drove Don Dziwulski a little nuts. A 12-year-veteran of the Baltimore Fire Department and one of its supervising paramedics, Dziwulski has about all he can handle on a normal day, when calls for assistance - and life-and-death decisions - come thick and fast. Saturday afternoon, driving an ambulance around the snow-covered city was made even tougher by having to slow down, and even stop, for pedestrians who just wouldn't get out of the way. "I'm trying to be a gentleman right now," Dziwulski said at the wheel of a red-and-white Ford F-450 truck, its siren blaring and lights flashing, as he carefully maneuvered his way around a man on Harford Road who appeared to be too busy talking on his cell phone to consider stepping aside.