Cops are out of control. Here in Az a 2 y/o gets stung by a scorpion & the DPS officer threatens mom

[jillan]

with arrest for speeding to the hospital after he pulls her over for the second time! When he knew why they were speeding.

Either you wait here for the ambulance or you will be arrested. In the meantime the kid is screaming & throwing up in the back.
Scorpion bites on someone that young could be deadly.

The kid is okay but mom is taking this further.


Assholes!!

http://www.azcentral.com/videos/news/arizona/2014/07/07/12322227/

[Quackers]

1. Here in Ohio

I've had the State Patrol get in front of us with lights and sirens and escorted us to the hospital at higher speeds. Glad the little boy is ok.

[jillan]

2. That is what you would expect. There are two types of cops out there.

Assholes and the ones that are there to protect and serve.

[lpbk2713]

3. Even if it was only a traffic offense ...

I'd sure as hell request a jury trial. And then I'd see to it that there was so much publicity that the dumbass would have to find a new line of work. Like maybe working at a car wash.

[Warpy]

4. Cops used to provide escorts with lights and sirens

Now I guess it's considered safer to force someone to wait for an ambulance.

[joeglow3]

26. Usually, it is.

[unblock]

5. as a former emt, there's a bit of debate about even pros running lights and sirens.

the single biggest risk to emts is in fact a traffic accident involving the ambulance they're in while running lights and sirens. part of the problem is it's vastly overused, emts just love all the traffic moving out of the way and the free license to break the normal traffic rules. plus it's what patients and their families expect.

but in fact it should used, if at all, sparingly and with great caution. only cases where a few seconds might really make a difference should even be considered. if the patient has a migraine or a broken bone or something like that, generally a nice, slow, gentle ride is more appropriate. possible strokes are a prime example of a case where it probably makes sense, because seconds really can make a big difference.

mostly, though, studies have had a very tough time finding actual improvement in outcomes based on running lights and sirens. people vastly overestimate the time saved by running light and sirens, and then they vastly overestimate the benefit of those few extra seconds or minutes. in an overwhelming number of cases, it just doesn't make a difference.


granted, part of the issue is i'm talking about emt travel time to the hospital, whereas in this case we're talking about patient travel time to the emts or hospital in the first place. emts can stabilize in the field before deciding to go to the hospital. so there's may be more cases where getting to an emt or hospital quickly might make a difference, whereas getting from emt to hospital might not.


in any event, running lights and sirens is dangerous enough with a trained professional behind the wheel. it's scary dangerous with a panicked and untrained parent behind the wheel. no jury would ever find against a parent in such an emergency, though i don't know how far that sympathy would go if the parent got into an accident along the way.


best think probably would be to have the cop run lights and sirens ahead, in part because the cop can keep it at a controlled speed, coming to near stops at red lights before going through them relatively safely, e.g.

again, no one's going to blame the parent, and as i said, the cop had a probably better alternative, but i can't get all worked up about his actual actions.

[Old Codger]

6. A long time ago

The city of Minneapolis ran some test runs of police cars driving across town with lights and siren vs. just driving normally, not sure how many actual test runs were made but it came out that the "normal" drives actually beat the lights and siren times most of the time..

[unblock]

8. hadn't heard that one, but i do remember a similar study

where they tallied up all the violations, over an hour or so, the lights and sirens took over 100 unsafe and/or illegal (were they not running lights and sirens) actions, and beat the normal driver by about 20 seconds.

how many times have you had some fool overtake you illegally and zoom off, only to meet up at the next red light or behind the next driver they can't pass?

[Old Codger]

9. many many times

Happens all the time.... The study I am referring to took place in the early 50's.

[badtoworse]

12. On our squad, we rarely used the siren with a patient onboard.

I worked with the community volunteer ambulance squad a number of years ago. On an emergency call, we would use the lights and sirens to get to the patient, but we didn't run the siren with a patient in the rig unless they were in truly serious condition. The reason was that we believed it would unnecessarily upset the patient. In the year I was there, I only remember a few instances when we did it - once when we had a heart attack victim in the rig, another time with a patient suffering seizures and a third time with a patient seriously injured in a car accident. There were some others that I don't remember.

[unblock]

14. that's more reasonable. at least on your way to the scene, you're belted in.

less likely to be belted in when you're working a patient.

it may be possible to be more selective even on the way to the scene, depending on what you know about the call. police are typical the first responders and they may be able to assess how urgent an ambulance is actually needed.

[badtoworse]

18. We didn't run into the police that often

They would usually call NYC EMS instead of a volunteer squad.

[unblock]

27. interesting, never heard of a volunteer squad competing with a paid squad

i thought it was always either all volunteer or all paid.

how does it work, who gets dispatched?

[badtoworse]

34. I'm not sure how it worked, occasionally, more than 1 crew would arrive.

In that case, the first on the scene would handle it. I think most of our calls came from people in the community, most of whom had made a contribution to keep us going. I don't know if we ever got called by the 911 operator - it was a long time ago.

[C Moon]

7. Whatever happened to escorting the hospital?

[Renew Deal]

10. Or putting them in his car and driving?

No common sense

[UglyGreed]

11. So glad the little

boy survived despite the "efforts" of the officer.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

13. If the malefactors and happenstance don't get us our Protectors will. nt

[dilby]

15. We have speed limits and ambulances for a reason.

If this woman would have gotten in an accident and killed her child people would be questioning why the cop did not arrest her and have the child escorted by an ambulance. It was stupid of this woman to think she should take her child to the hospital when she called 911 and would have had an ambulance take her child faster than her neighbor ever could with Phoenix traffic as it is.

[moriah]

16. Arizona has a lot of rural areas. It might not have been faster.

If the nearest ambulance station was 30 miles away, and the hospital was 30 miles away, it would have been a 60-mile round trip for the ambulance, vs 30 miles for the parent to drive in directly.

Now, I don't know where they were. However, there are times when what you state was incorrect.

[dilby]

17. She lives in the West Valley

It's not rural, my sister and father live in that part of Phoenix, from the video it looks like she lives in Surprise.

[moriah]

19. Well, I've lived in rural areas where it wasn't always faster.

As a matter of fact, I had two epi-pens in case one ran out on the way.

[dilby]

20. The EMT's would have been able to provide Medical Assistance

while they were transporting the child instead of the kid puking in the back of a car. She was reckless and obviously feels privileged where laws don't apply to her, typical wealthy white woman.

[moriah]

21. So you'll blame my poor white woman of a mother who sped to get my sister to the hospital....

... when she had a kidney infection and was pissing blood at about the same age? They'd been on a road trip.

When she was pulled over, the cop took one look at my sister and radioed on to other cops that she wasn't to be pulled over, and gave her directions to the closest hospital.

[dilby]

22. Did your mother call 911 before she decided to speed?

From the sounds of it your mother was already on the road so that is common sense, this woman called 911 then proceeded to take her own child to the Hospital. I have a feeling an Ambulance was dispatched to her home so she basically removed resources that could have been used for someone else in an emergency and then she was a danger to herself and others and thinks she deserves a medal plus compensation for being a stupid.

[moriah]

24. She was in the car, she didn't have a cell phone back in those days.

This was a trip through Tennessee to see her parents in Arkansas from North Carolina. When Angi started screaming and pissing blood a foot into the air, she engaged the lead foot looking for the nearest town.

But bringing class and race into it, in my opinion, just makes you look bad. ANY parent wants to get their child help as fast as they can. You never know, perhaps she had gotten instruction from 911 to drive her son in? Ever try to think above a 2-year-old's agonizing screams? All you are thinking about is getting your kid help.

What if this had been a poor black family in Phoenix? Because I'm sure they would have reacted the same way, if they had access to a car. Because, you know, a child is screaming in agony. That kinda breaks racial and class barriers.

[dilby]

25. So your mom did the right thing.

But if your mom would have wrecked and your sister died that would have been a tragedy, this woman is not the same as your mom. She was home, she called 911 she spoke with a dispatcher and then decided to drive to the hospital at unreasonable speeds which were dangerous to herself and others. When I broke my arm, before cell phones and my bones were sticking out of my arm my buddy decided he needed to speed to the hospital and run lights, I told him slow down and stop for lights, I would rather lose my arm than my life. He didn't listen and lucky for us it was 3 in the morning so no traffic but I was more worried he was driving like an idiot. When I got to the hospital I was not put into surgery for a full 4 hours after arriving so there was no reason for his recklessness.

[Lee-Lee]

23. Here is the deal

Had they allowed her to continue driving in a reckless fashion and she got into an accident who would DU be blaming- the cops for allowing it.

Driving fast like that under stress is dangerous enough when you are trained for it and have lights and sirens and laws on your side. Untrained and under stress it's doubly dangerous.

There are ambulances for a reason. The responsible thing to do was get the child on an ambulance where they can start prehospital treatment right away, not transport the child in a dangerous fashion while also endangering everyone else on the road.

The police have a responsibility to view situations like this from the standpoint of the safety of everyone, not get tunnel vision about the child. Mom risked the life and safety of her child, herself and everyone else on the road. Sure, her intent was noble- but the croons she took on that intent were the wrong ones.

Plus, the odds of her being able to get the child to the hospital quicker than ambulance being able to reach them were probably pretty slim. The child would have been far better off with the paramedics administering the protocols for a scorpion sting in the ambulance on the way instead of a delayed treatment in the ER.

Heart was in the right place mom, but you still did the wrong thing.

[moriah]

31. I suspect travel was disrupted more by the cop pulling them over twice....

.... than it would have been by a car going 10+ over the speed limit. People do that here all the time. The disruption to traffic flows by having cars get on and off the highway that often are more likely to cause an accident.

Also, if he actually felt that it was inappropriate, when she stopped the first time to let him know, he could have called an ambulance. Instead, I think he wasn't paying any attention at all to what they said, more intent on getting his quota for the day.

[LiberalArkie]

28. Yep. I know how that goes. I broke my leg and a friend was driving me to Little Rock.

We got pulled over my deputy. They called an ambulance from their county. It had to drive 30 miles to get to me. I was only 20 miles from the Little Rock hospital. They took me about 40 miles to Morrilton, Ar but they looked at me and said that they could not do anything to take me to Conway which was another 20 miles. My friend was ticketed and I was only 20 miles from the drama unit to start with and ended up going 60 miles by ambulance.

[moriah]

30. Like they actually thought Morrilton was going to help?

Aren't they part of St. Mary's Regional system anyways? St. Mary's, you're lucky you don't die from St. Mary's Staph -- a specific breed of staph identified at that hospital by the CDC.

[LiberalArkie]

32. Well back then 1993, they were just a rural hospital.

I got good care at Conway, 12 hrs of surgery. 2 surgeons did the work. But the 4 hours without any pain killer caused the anesthesia to react wrong along with being out under for 12 hours. I had to be brought back 4 times. In fact when I woke up I was in my bed with a room full of white jackets and one pulling a needle out of my arm.



The doc told me years later that I still hold the record (his) for the longest operation for a compound fracture (4 places).

[moriah]

33. Really surprised you didn't get taken to Conway first, if you were that close to LR (I presume....

.... on I-40)? Unless you were pulled over right at the Conway County/Faulkner County line on the wrong side of it....

People are nuts. I'm sorry that happened to you.

[Union Scribe]

29. A novel, perhaps stupid, idea:

What if we gave every driver a flashing light that could be used only once, in an emergency, to let other drivers and police know they have a true emergency and need to get to the hospital or wherever. I'm not really talking about blowing through red lights or anything but just a heads up so people can maybe cut them a break and get out of the way and a cop would maybe just follow them instead of impede them.

The person would later have to justify their use of the emergency flasher with documentation. Anyone abusing ("I was late for my flight&quot it could face penalties and be barred from having another light. But if they used it properly they'd get a new one for a potential future emergency.

[Lurker Deluxe]

35. Here's a novel idea

What if we set up an emergency phone number that is always answered by trained people who know how to deal with people who, in need of assistance, are panicking.

We could make the number easy to remember, publish it everywhere, make it the same in EVERY.SINGLE.PLACE. in the USofA. I dunno, something catchy like ... 911.

Then, at every fire station and hospital we could have people who are trained to respond to medical emergencies and have them be on call 24/7 so what when these people who answer this "911 call" can have someone to dispatch at a moments notice to get help on the way. We could call them ... emergency medical service, maybe make it shorter like EMS so people can remember it.

We could then build special vehicles which have life saving equipment in them, including the basic stuff that keeps people alive like epi-pens and defibrillators. I am sure we could come up with a name for such a vehicle. They could even have sirens and lights, so people would give them the right-a-way in traffic. In large urban areas we could even have helicopters to get those people who are in really serious life threating situations to a hospital even quicker.

I am sure if we put our collective minds together we could develop such a system. That way no one would have to worry about being able to access medical services in an emergency.

[Union Scribe]

37. Come to Detroit and dial 911.

In a lot of places funding cuts and general incompetency have led to people having to fend for themselves in emergencies. In any case being a snarky bellend doesn't help people.

[mercuryblues]

36. that cop

had 2 choices.

radio ahead to the hospital and let them know a kid was on his way in with a scorpion bite so they can be set up and ready when the kid got there. Then tell her to turn on her flashers and escort them in. Be the families hero for protecting and serving.


or

be a total jack ass and threaten to arrest a woman who was rushing her kid to the ER.

Which choice would have gotten him a nice letter in his file? Which choice would make the whole department look like freaking pond scum?