An Opportunity for Local Action

It is an easy thing to say that our government is corrupt; it is quite another to do something about it.

Re: Besmirching Moscow Ambulance

A few days ago, the following response to an anonymous rant appeared on Craigslist:

“Looking at the “Bring to Light” blog . . . it appears to be a one-sided story. The “author” claims to have tried to make contact with the “other side”, but who would want to comment when it’s pretty obvious the “author” is likely an employee of that competing ambulance service and would twist the words of anyone who did respond.”

EMS Bureau Investigates Good Samaritan

In January of 2016, Troy Zakariasen, owner of PACT EMS, received a letter from the Idaho EMS Bureau Chief, Wayne Denny, informing him that the Bureau was investigating his company.

EMS Partners

King County quite possibly has the best regional EMS system in the world, providing life-saving services every three minutes on average, and responding to an area of over two thousand square miles with a population of nearly two million people.

If you must have a heart attack and you want to survive

A One-Sided Story

Some of our readers have commented that the stories presented on this blog seem to be one-sided.

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but the way I see it, there are at least four sides of the story that need to be presented: the volunteers at Moscow Ambulance, the city-paid administrators at Moscow Ambulance, PACT EMS, and the residents of the City of Moscow and of Latah County.

Going in reverse order,

Moscow Ambulance Refuses Mutual Aid

In an article titled No Paramedic in Latah County, I made the case that the administrators of Moscow Ambulance should consider forming a mutual aid agreement with PACT EMS.

Moscow Ambulance is suffering from a lack of personnel. This shortage is driven in part

No Paramedic in Latah County

On December 7, 2015, there were no paramedics available for 9-1-1 calls in Latah County for a period of nearly five hours.

If you listened to the video then you heard the voice of the only paramedic on call at Moscow Ambulance notifying dispatch of what he was doing.

An Ideal Scenario

In an ideal world, we wouldn’t need ambulances or fire trucks, paramedics or firefighters. But since we do need them (and sometimes we need them very quickly) we should do what we can to make this part of our world as well-oiled as possible.

Moscow’s EMS system is far from being well-oiled; it is full of logistical as well as personal attitude problems, which has given occasion for an uncomfortable relationship between volunteer and paid agencies.

To find what we might do to oil some of these squeaks, I spoke with one who has significant experience in well-run EMS systems.

Moscow Daily News: Letter To The Editor

The DNews published an abridged version of the first installment in this series as a Letter to the Editor. Please take a moment to read where it all started and thank the volunteers for their hard work and the time that they spend saving lives.

Mafia Medics

Previous installments in this series made it clear that Latah County does not have adequate resources to consistently maintain its ALS emergency medical services, much less provide consistent inter-facility patient transports.

The problem is squarely situated