NAEMT Reinforces Need for Safety Restraints

     The National Association of EMTs recently issued a statement advocating the use of safety restraints for all EMS personnel. They are also advocating creation of a National EMS Injury Database to quantify all injuries to EMS providers, including in-vehicle crashes, and are seeking to develop more scientific studies that will help determine appropriate restraint and protection systems for EMS providers and patients.

     "Unfortunately, EMS providers reflect the same seatbelt compliance rates as the general population," says Bruce Evans, MPA, chair of NAEMT's Health & Safety Task Force. "The nature of the work often prevents them from being restrained while accessing patients, and the engineering in the box area is not always sufficient to protect people in collisions, or even make it comfortable to wear a seatbelt and provide patient care. In many cases, it comes down to a management issue and whether they're enforcing seatbelt regulations."

     NAEMT is taking a three-pronged approach to the issue of ambulance safety, says Evans: getting supervisors to reinforce the safety message and employees to comply with seatbelt usage; determining how manufacturers can engineer the vehicles to be more crashworthy; and looking at how patients are placed in the back of the ambulance. There are a number of things the manufacturers can do, says Evans, but they all involve some added cost, and there's no scientifically sound federal standard or national testing process to reinforce making the changes.

     After the successful response to a poster released in October 2006, NAEMT will introduce a new poster this fall dealing with roadway safety and reinforcing the seatbelt message. The hope, says Evans, is to impress on EMS providers the long-term effects of being in a vehicle accident while unrestrained. "People underestimate the financial and emotional burden it places on their families, as well as the fact that Worker's Comp may cover healthcare for their broken neck and paralysis, but they won't come to their house to put in ramps or retrofit the bathroom," says Evans.

     Evans strongly encourages more people to get involved in safety issues. "We need to hear from people who are out there doing the job," he says. "If we leave it to the bureaucrats and engineers, we won't find a viable solution. We want to hear from people who have been in crashes and survived them so we can determine how to design the vehicles so medics can feel comfortable in them and still be safe."

     For more, go to www.naemt.org.

-MN