Apr 10, 2015
By Bryan Fass
One of the advantages of teaching more than 500 classes per year is I get to see lots of routines in Fire and EMS -saving; designs of how responders move, lift, pull, carry, transfer and just walk. I also get to listen to lots of stories about how few ever get back to normal after an injury and how responders got hurt.
My aha instant one day was only this: "EMS is in the moving business; we're movers!"
EMS is in the transferring company
(Image Bryan Fass)
ASSOCIATED ARTICLES
The best way to use cots and stretchers to their full potential
2 EMS lifting methods to lessen harms
4 measures to remain injury free
RELATED CONTENT SPONSORED BY
Every facet of our occupation is physical, all of our tools are heavy and transferring folks is a job task that is critical. Yet as a profession we spend little how to transfer matters safely.
A question I ask in all my courses is "When was the most recent time you had a comprehensive patient and gear managing type?" What I get back are blank stares and finally a few people grumbling, 'never.' We spend most if not all of our training time on operations and clinical superiority and not spend time training to do the crucial job task, transferring patients.
Since we are medical movers, sections have to do a much better job teaching suppliers why they the way to prevent it and get hurt. First thing we should examine is what the loads we raise do to our body.
Just how much weight is safe to lift?
NIOSH has a lift equation and while complicated, it tells us one thing: The weight limit for a person to pick up off the floor is 51 pounds. Deciding an item off the floor of that weight will put around 764 to 800 pounds of compressive load on the backbone. If this may seem like a lot, it is. We know that at around 800 pounds, the backbone of an untrained person (someone who does not work out, is dehydrated, fatigued, or eats ill) will begin to be injured. When was the final time you decided a 51-pound patient off the ground? Many suppliers take 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 lifts should be limited by EMS below the knees. These lifts create a few of the highest spinal loads we see in providers. If we step out of the EMS carton to get a second we are able to look at ' professions moving and make the connection that we are just one of the sole professions that permit its employees to frequently lift extreme loads from below the knees often. So when what we perceive to be small loads truly exceed what our body is able to manage, it leads to suppliers becoming quite proficient at the dangerous movement of lifting from below the knees. [4]
Let's look at lateral transports and take it a step further. Pulling a 105- pound patient via bedsheet between two beds applies between 832 to 1,708 pounds of compressive force, while carrying the same patient down a set of stairs compresses the spinal column with 1,012 to 1,281 pounds. [1,2] Again we regularly exceed the ability of the human body to dissipate outside the or dampen loads placed upon it.
4 suggestions for safer lifting
(Image Bryan Fass)
1. Cease lifting from your floor
As we teach all our students, "use a tool, do not become the tool." Most systems already have the tools on the trucks that may alter the lift height. Use your MegaMover(TMark), Reeves(TMark), or Titan(TMark) to change the elevator height from the ground to almost knee height, where we are considerably stronger and possess an improved spine angle.
2. Lateral transfers are handled for by use
If you follow step one above, then the friction is already beneath the individual. Simply slide them around to the hospital bed using something that already reduces friction and has handles. The handles mean that on the pull, responders don't have to lean over so far to begin the transfer.
3. Work collectively
If and when there are trained staff on scene, everyone is about the lift. As a culture EMS and Fire -rescue need to know that if one man cans hurt, then it just makes sense that a 350-pound patient demands all hands. This goes for your powered cots spot two folks on the foot of the cot for loading to the truck.
4. Slow down
Certainly one of the best sayings in EMS is "it is not my emergency." Merely slowing down will allow you and your p