Apr 10, 2015
By Bryan Fass
One of the advantages of teaching more than 500 courses per year is I get to see plenty of routines in Fire and EMS -rescue; of how responders move designs, lift, pull, take, transfer and simply walk. I also get to listen to plenty of stories about how responders got hurt and how very few ever get back to normal after an injury.
My aha moment one day was just this: "EMS is in the moving company; we are movers!"
EMS is in the moving company
(Image Bryan Fass)
CONNECTED POSTS
The best way to make use of cots and stretchers to their full potential
2 EMS lifting methods to reduce injuries
4 measures to remain injury free
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Every aspect of our occupation is not mental, all of our tools are heavy and folks that are transferring is a vital job task. Yet we spend little to no time training the best way to move things safely.
A question I ask in all my courses is "When was the last time you had a thorough patient and gear handling category?" What I get back are blank stares and finally a few folks grumbling, 'never.' We spend time training to do the most critical job task, transferring patients and not spend most if not all of our training time on clinical excellence and operations.
Sections need to do a much better job teaching providers they get hurt and the way to prevent it, since we are medical movers. The first thing we must analyze is what the loads we raise do to our body.
Just how much weight is safe to lift?
NIOSH has a raise equation and it tells us one thing while complicated: The weight limit for an individual to pick up off the floor is 51 pounds. Picking on an object off the ground of the weight will set around 764 to 800 pounds of compressive load on the spine. It is if this seems like a lot. We are aware that at around 800 pounds, the back of an untrained person (someone who doesn't work out, is dehydrated, fatigued, or eats poorly) will start to be injured. When was the most recent time you picked a 51-pound patient off the floor? Many suppliers carry a compressive load of over 2000 pounds every day; multiple times per shift. [ ] 1,2, 3
FEMA states in their emergency medical services handbook that EMS should limit raises below the knees. These raises generate a few of the highest spinal loads we find in suppliers. If we step out of the EMS box for a second we can take a look at ' professions going and make the connection that we are among the sole professions that allow its workers to regularly lift extreme loads from below the knees often. So when what we perceive to be small loads actually surpass what our body can manage, it leads to providers becoming very proficient at the dangerous movement of lifting from below the knees. [4]
Let us take it a step further and look at lateral transfers. Pulling on a 105- pound patient via bedsheet between two beds applies between 832 to 1,708 pounds of compressive force, while taking the same patient down a back . pounds with 1,012 to 1,281 [1,2] Again we regularly surpass the skill of the human body to dissipate or dampen the external loads put upon
4 hints for safer lifting
(Picture Bryan Fass)
1. Discontinue lifting in the floor
As we educate all our pupils, "use a tool, do not become the tool." Most systems already have the tools on the trucks that can transform the elevator height. Use your MegaMover(TMark), Reeves(TMark), or Titan(TMark) to alter the elevator height from the floor to nearly knee height, where we are considerably stronger and also have an improved back angle.
2. Use handles for lateral transports
Then the friction reducing device is under the individual if you follow step one above. Just slide them over to the hospital bed using something that already reduces friction and has handles. The handles mean that on the pull, responders usually do not need to lean over so far to start the transport.
3. Work jointly
If and when there are trained personnel on scene, everyone is on the lift. As a culture EMS and Fire -rescue need to know that if one individual cans hurt, then it only makes sense that a 350-pound patient demands all hands. This goes for your cots that are powered position two individuals on the foot of the cot for loading into the truck.
4. Slow down
Among my personal favorite sayings in EMS is "it's not my crisis." Simply slowing down will let you along with your partn