NYC EMT's Told Not to Transport Cardiac Arrest Patients to Hospitals

KingstonsMom · ‎03-09-2010

Paramedics in New York City have been told to stop taking certain patients in cardiac arrest to hospitals already swamped with coronavirus cases.

The Regional Emergency Medical Services Council of New York has told medics to leave heart attack sufferers who cannot be revived at the scene with immediate effect.

One anonymous EMT told The New York Post: 'They're trying to do what they can with the people who have the most likely chance of being saved.'

The coronavirus outbreak has already pushed the city's ambulance service close to the breaking point, with 20 per cent of its workers already out sick.

The letter sent to emergency workers instructs them to try and resuscitate patients as usual.

But adds: 'No adult non-traumatic or blunt traumatic cardiac arrest is to be transported to a hospital with manual or mechanical compression in progress without either return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) or a direct order from a medical control physician unless there is imminent physical danger to the EMS provider on the scene.

It adds: 'In the event a resuscitation is terminated, and the body is in public view, the body can be left in the custody of the NYPD.'

Health officials used forklifts to help lift dead bodies onto a refrigerated truck outside New York's Brooklyn Hospital Center this week and hospitals have been using bed sheets to wrap bodies because they no longer have body bags.

The COVID-19 death toll in New York City is now 1,374 with 47,439 confirmed cases.

New deaths in the US rose by 1,047 to 5,139 by the end of Wednesday and new infections surged by 26,866 to 216,553.

The Pentagon is ordering 100,000 body bags as experts predict the coronavirus will claim the lives of more than 200,000 Americans.

The US death toll, which stands at 5,139, has now surpassed the number of deaths reported in China (3,309) where the outbreak first emerged back in December.

You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.

Snoopp · ‎02-02-2015

It’s sickening.

FlowerBear · ‎03-24-2018

How sad and just awful!

Mominohio · ‎08-08-2010

I think we all knew this was coming.

And from what I hear, it is something that happens in mass casualty events, where decisions in the field have to be made by frontline healthcare and emergency workers. I heard one say today that they have been trained in the past to know that they will see people in mass situations that they know they could have saved if that was the ONLY person they had to deal with, but because of the volume, they have to determine which ones are more likely to make it and tend to them first.

I remember telling a doctor I was seeing back in mid March that our hospitals would start to resemble the battle field triage experience, and I think they are.

Boomernichols · ‎11-22-2013

We are in a sad state of affairs. I also saw where they have run out of body bags and are using sheets to load those who have passed.

Sushismom · ‎03-09-2010

Truth be told, the vast majority of cardiac arrests are NOT survivable. It's only a very, very, very few who are resusitated.

Trinity11 · ‎11-16-2014

@Sushismom wrote:
Truth be told, the vast majority of cardiac arrests are NOT survivable. It's only a very, very, very few who are resusitated.

My son went into cardiac arrest when he was 14. He is now 35 and doing well. We were told that because we were 5 minutes from the hospital in his pediatrician's office, the rapid response saved his life...

Sushismom · ‎03-09-2010

@Trinity11 wrote:
@Sushismom wrote:
Truth be told, the vast majority of cardiac arrests are NOT survivable. It's only a very, very, very few who are resusitated.
My son went into cardiac arrest when he was 14. He is now 35 and doing well. We were told that because we were 5 minutes from the hospital in his pediatrician's office, the rapid response saved his life...

I am very glad that your son was one of the very few who did survive.

Lipstickdiva · ‎03-10-2010

@Sushismom wrote:
Truth be told, the vast majority of cardiac arrests are NOT survivable. It's only a very, very, very few who are resusitated.

I believe it's under 5% that survive.

millieshops · ‎03-09-2010

I think this has been the warning from the medical experts for weeks now - that one of the major dangers of COVID -19 would be that our facilities would be overwhelmed. And that includes beds, machines, supplies, cleaning personnel, and sufficient trained doctors, nurses, CNA's, etc. to make decisions and treat patients.

In an ideal world, no doctor, nurse, etc., no hospital administrator would ever have to decide whether tthey can treat every patient who presents, whether to treat Patient A or Patient C. What incredible stress For them and for me, I wish that ideal world existed somewhere.