Without evidence of benefit, an intervention should not be presumed to be beneficial or safe.

- Rogue Medic

New Orleans paramedics tending to patient at Quicky’s convenience store find ambulance ‘booted’

 

The Quicky’s Discount convenience store is at 2701 Tulane Ave., across from the Orleans Parish Criminal District Courthouse in New Orleans.[1]

 

In EMS we see all sorts of bad behavior, but some people are more callous and stupid than even we expect.

Booting an ambulance treating a chest pain patient is definitely a newsworthy form of contemptible behavior. Eventually, this has the possibility of eventually resulting in a Darwin Award.[2]
 

A boot removed from a New Orleans EMS ambulance left the vehicle with a flat tire.[1]

 

Does it matter how bad parking is?

Is it ever justifiable to boot an emergency vehicle, of any kind, on an emergency call?

Is there any reason the person who placed the boot, or ordered that it be placed, or both, should not be facing criminal charges?

Has the manager of the store been looking to teach EMS a lesson?

There is a lot that we do not know about this, so there may be something important we do not know, but WTF?
 

Employees at Quicky’s declined to comment about a parking boot placed on the ambulance in the store’s lot.[1]

 

Silence is not the right choice.

Silence tells people that the truth is worse than they suspect – and people will already suspect it is very bad.

Is this the message the management mean to send?

Whatever you are thinking – it’s worse than that!
 

Paramedics were responding to a call about a man having chest pains. After arriving to the store and putting the patient inside the ambulance, the paramedics heard a “loud noise” as they tried to drive away, Tate said. They then realized the vehicle had been booted.[1]

 

There always seems to be someone dumber and even more callous than we expect. A friend of mine told me that a doctor told her to move the cardiac arrest patient out of the doorway so that patients could get through. While I was not there, it is something that I might expect from some doctors.
 

Tate said the medics left the vehicle with the lights flashing.

A sign on the property reads: “If you leave the property for any reason your vehicle will be booted,” according to WWL-TV.[1]

 

A prominently posted apology and some sort of free food for EMS personnel would seem like maybe just the beginning of an apology by Quicky’s.

Maybe just the beginning.

Maybe.
 

The Quicky’s Discount convenience store is at 2701 Tulane Ave., across from the Orleans Parish Criminal District Courthouse in New Orleans.[1]

 

Things appear to be unchanged, except that the lowest level person responsible is reported to have been fired – Firing the employee does not solve the problem

Footnotes:

[1] New Orleans paramedics tending to patient at Quicky’s convenience store find ambulance ‘booted’
By Erik Ortiz
New York Daily News
Published: Sunday, December 2, 2012, 5:05 PM
Updated: Sunday, December 2, 2012, 5:05 PM
Article

[2] Darwin Awards
Wikipedia
Article

.

Comments

  1. I’ve purchased food from Quicky’s before.

    No longer.

    And the next time I stop by there, it will be for the sole purpose of informing them that their asshattery has made them an object of ridicule and scorn from EMT’s across the country.

  2. What can I say, perhaps the crew should have made extricating the patient a “quicky” and they wouldn’t have had this problem?

    Yes, I am taking the piss, that’s pretty poor form from the boot company.

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