Cancelations of Cover ALS units

[N3UEA]

What is your protcol if you are dispatched to cover another ALS unit & they then become available? Please, only offical protocol, thanks http://www.firehouse.com/forums/smile.gif

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Chris Buchmoyer, EMT-P
Lancaster County PA
**The preceding comments are mine alone and in no way represent the views of my employers or their employees**

[Daron]

I work with 2 different departments. The 1 I agree with on this issue has a protocol that says we will continue on the call as before until another unit of equal or better training arrives on scene and tells us otherwise. As I have been taught, once you accept a call you have liablilty to that call and you must proceed with that in mind. The main question is if something was to happen to the truck that became available, be it a wreck, mechanical breakdown, or whatever, who is responsible for the time delay for the other truck having to go back into service and back track themself when they where already en route to begin with. I think it is better just to either have both trucks respond at least until 1 of them gets on scene or just have the first truck take the call and leave the other truck available if it is not closer to begin with. It would be a whole lot easier to explain if something was to go wrong.

[FireMedicCapt]

This is easy. Closest truck gets the call. That is our hospital / county policy.

[N3UEA]

That is our policy also (Closest unit gets the call) The problem becomes when a unit says that they are closer when in fact they are not. I think it's poor patient care to do that. Some agencies are out for the all mighty dollar & not patient care. Anybody run into that & if so, what do you do?