Guest taken to hospital after metal object falls off TTD

Cue Nurse Coco's retort...

Wow, that link Rihard posted is super interesting. I gotta say after reading the comments and her responses (if it's actually her) she comes off really, really bad here.

This NP Zinni is a whole new level of Karen.

I am almost in disbelief that someone could be so reckless.

What's the over/under of her pleading her case here?

Not to add fuel to the fire, but in the eyes of a Hospital Chaplain who actually deals with trauma patients & their families in the ER, I feel that I should step in. I agree with those who say that the crazy nut job lady should’ve stepped aside. When I get paged to the ER to be with the family of a trauma patient, I keep the family separated from the trauma bay; (until appropriate for them to go in), and the Docs, Nurses, and Techs, do their thing as they were trained to do in Med/Nursing School.

Also having 2 lawyers in my family they would say she also has a malpractice suit coming too.

Anyway, PRAISE God for CP EMS, Sandusky Fire, Firelands Regional ER, and the trauma center where the patient went. Prayers for positive outcome for the patient and her family.

I can’t speak to local protocols for CP/Sandusky, but in Indianapolis (Marion County) if a higher ranking medical authority (i.e. a physician, surgeon, etc.) wants to play the MD card and butt in, they first have to provide credentials and then they have to assume patient care ALL THE WAY to the hospital. Unless they are willing to to do that then their opinion means nothing and the EMS crew has to do their thing based on their protocols. Whether this woman was an NP or MD, without having her license on-hand her opinions were worthless.

I will also second what Paisley’s husband said about cervical collar use here, albeit once again based on my local protocols. There are some circumstances when EMS can clear c-spine and determine a collar is unnecessary, however the circumstances that we know of in this situation would warrant a cervical collar to be placed based on mechanism of injury (blunt trauma to the head) and distracting injury/pain preventing the patient from being able to deny having any midline (aka spine) neck or back pain or tenderness.

Finally to address the lack of a cervical collar being available, my first instinct is to suspect that the responding crews just didn’t bring enough equipment to the scene based on the scenario. Let me be clear, this is just conjecture and I am NOT making any accusations of negligence. While I have no knowledge of CP EMS, I can’t imagine cervical collars wouldn’t be a standard piece of equipment for even the most basic EMS service. Same goes for Sandusky. My best guess would be they either didn’t check their bags at the start of their shift, or they just failed to bring a collar with them from the ambulance to the scene. Again, this is just my best guess. I’d be lying if I said in my 5 1/2 years in EMS that I never once failed to bring all the appropriate equipment to a scene where the patient was more than a stone’s throw from where the ambulance was parked.

I do not envy the position these crews were in, being very much in the public eye and inevitably being recorded on dozens of phones. The job is hard enough as it is without being scrutinized by the general public that has no idea what EMS really does.

If CP had to dangle $20/hr to get warm bodies employed at the park for "unskilled" positions I'm sure the search for warm bodies with EMS certification and experience wasn't any easier so it's highly likely that for the CP crew this could have been the most extreme injury they had dealt with in their career so far. My husband had been hired for CP EMS right after getting certification with no experience. He ended up taking another job he was offered that week because it was full time year round instead but I don't doubt that a large portion of the CP crews are in that same position of it being their first job in EMS and their first actual experience with trauma. I don't envy being in that situation at all.

It will be interesting to see who is proven correct as far as the quality of treatment.

Apparently, there may have been very good reason that EMS did not use a c-collar for a person with suspected traumatic brain injury:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31190321/

^ I don't really see how there's a question about the quality of treatment, they did the best they could in the situation they were presented as far as I, and others can tell. We initially were going off a statement from someone who quite clearly turned into an unreliable and narcissistic bystander, while other bystanders who were talked to were actually impressed with the speed and efficiency the responders provided.

I also saw comments from an actual emergency doctor yesterday who claimed that in fact, a cervical collar was not to be used in this situation for more than one reason. They clearly know more than me, so that was enough for me to think they did the right thing by not wasting time waiting for one, again, for multiple reasons.

And yes, the doctor who mentioned the c-collar issue, also pointed to that study you posted. Interesting stuff.

F1rePhant0m said:

I also saw comments from an actual emergency doctor yesterday who claimed that in fact, a cervical collar was not to be used in this situation...

The part I struggle with is what was "the situation"? Do we know as fact anything more than the woman was struck by an object in the head? How can anyone, no matter what their qualifications are, who was not standing right there and saw exactly what was happening know what the situation called for?

That's very valid, but I guess my bigger point was that people on social media were jumping all over the EMS team over the neck brace issue, based pretty much entirely on the posts and behavior of the NP who made it all about herself, who's been rightly called out by other medical professionals for her behavior.

I agree with you on that.

Thabto said:

I think the way the Register is handling this is uncalled for. I really don't even think they should have posted the body cam video. I don't know anything about journalism ethics so I don't know if what they are doing is right or wrong.

The Sandusky Register has neither had nor demonstrated "journalism ethics" in 25+ years. It is unfortunate that it is the only major news outlet local to Sandusky and Erie County, but that is the curse of being in a small market. Generally speaking, I would trust the opinion and/or news reporting of the lemon chill guy before the Sandusky Register.

The problem with citing that study is that the crew is still bound to follow their local EMS protocols, which are written by doctors. Until the protocols are updated to reflect the newest evidence regarding cervical collar use, they’ll still be commonplace in traumatic situations. Not to get too off-topic but I for one would love to see c-collars become a thing of the past like long backboards mostly have. They rarely fit a patient well and are generally a nuisance.

Too many people judge what happens in an emergency based on their image of it from TV shows. Most calls do not fit nicely into any package, it's a messy business and people seem to think when it hasn't been done the way they see it on TV it's being done wrong.

I don't know if it is still this way but when I worked at the park a lot of the CP EMS/Fire employees were Sandusky Fire/Paramedics who worked at the park part-time (or Sandusky part-time), or were retired from larger departments. A couple of guys I knew were retired from Cleveland and Toledo. They also of course have newer EMTs fresh out of school but they were usually paired with someone who had more experience. On top of that, the new guys were typically the ones who would respond to dehydration calls in the park vs. the guys with more experience who responded via an actual ambulance from the firehouse behind Gemini.

The experience of the safety department aside, I find it a bit troubling that this lady wanted to jump in after having taken shots of alcohol.

This is so true! Like I said earlier 99% of the general public truly has no clue what EMS is really about or what we’re capable of. The shows and movies they get their ideas from are a far cry from reality.

The Sandusky Fishwrapper is a fine example of local newspapers and their current conditions.

Everybody conveniently chooses to forget that the news (TV, Radio, Newspaper) is not in the business of telling us the news, they are in the business of selling advertising.

That's all.

Everything else can go by the wayside if the column/inches or :30 second spot can be price-jacked.

Their success is measured by how much they can charge for advertising.

Any information you might glean otherwise is purely accidental and more likely from the commercials themselves.

So, did the Fishwrapper do the right thing with the body cam video???

Probably for their bottom line. But in my opinion, not the best path forward for us regular folks.

Official update from CP.

https://twitter.com/cedarpoint/status/1428468689343496194?s=21

^This does not surprise me. It is the right move. The only move. I think a lot of us saw this coming. Now that it's officially closed for the remainder of the season, I question how this will effect the timeline of closing WT.