September 6, 2024 • 23 mins
Welcome to Inscape Quest, where insightful conversations redefine perspectives. In this episode, Trudi Howley is joined by Colleen Cain, an expert in emergency dispatch. Together, we explore the unique challenges and critical protocols involved in handling horse-related accidents and making 911 calls.
Colleen provides essential tips on how to effectively communicate with 911 dispatchers during emergencies. We discuss the importance of knowing your location, securing animals, and the types of instructions dispatchers can provide over the phone.
Join us for a conversation that could make a significant difference in emergency situations around horses. A must listen for anyone going onto a horse property.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to InScape Quests, where insightful conversations redefine perspectives.
I'm your host, Trudy Howley. Join me as together we delve into discussions about
relationships, work, and passions, unlocking insights that may shape our lives.
(00:24):
A warm welcome to my guest, Colleen Kane. In today's episode,
we're exploring a practical topic that at times merges calm and chaos,
the experience of being around horses and the sudden need to dial 911.
Thank you for having me, Trudy. I had a life-changing horse riding accident decades ago.
(00:46):
I've never been the same since. And I think it's really important to get down
to some basics of accident and injury.
And I think both of us as equestrians are big believers in being proactive.
And you have a very special expertise in dealing with 911 calls and dispatches.
(01:11):
I work for Boulder County Sheriff's Office in the communications department.
I am the Emergency Medical Dispatch Program Coordinator, and that means I'm
involved in training our new dispatchers on all of our medical protocols,
how we handle 911 calls that are medically related, and then doing follow-up
(01:32):
quality control after the fact by listening to the calls that they've taken
and providing re-education and positive feedback,
negative feedback sometimes.
Times, mostly just things to work on for the future.
So you and the people you work with, supervise and train, are just doing an
incredibly valuable job.
(01:54):
And as equestrians, I think it's important to think about that 81% of equestrians
get injured at some point in their riding career,
And that is a pretty high statistic.
It's incredible. It's 83% of horse riding injuries are caused by falls and that
(02:17):
horse riding is considered more dangerous than skiing, motorcycling, football, and rugby.
There are, of course, injuries that happen on the ground as well.
So what is the number one piece of information anybody being around horses needs
(02:37):
to know about calling 911?
Is the address. And the more information, especially in a rural location,
that we can receive from the caller, the better.
So we will answer the phone, 911.
What is the address of the emergency? agency. If the callers can be familiar
with the street address at their location, we might not always know the name of the farm or barn.
(03:02):
In addition, the dispatcher may ask if you've got multiple gates,
let them know where the third gate on the left or information is specific to
the property that can help the responders get as quickly as possible to the
location of the patient.
If there's a gate code, make sure everybody knows to provide that information.
(03:25):
If there's a certain way that traffic moves best across the property,
let the dispatcher know that information.
People that call us with horse properties are always very interested in us knowing
that horses are there and asking us to shut down lights and sirens.
(03:46):
We're always happy to put that information into the call.
We can't always guarantee that our responding agencies are able to do once they're
on the property, but sometimes they have protocols that don't allow them to shut down.
If they're turning off of a busy street into your property, they still have
to allow the traffic surrounding them and oncoming traffic to know that they're there.
(04:08):
That's really helpful information. And hopefully other people on the farm can
perhaps also encourage people who are riding to dismount or secure loose horses as well,
if lights and sirens might be arriving.
Loose horses, loose dogs, loose barn cat, anything that normally we send an
(04:33):
ambulance and almost always at least one fire truck responds depending on what the incident is.
The visibility from a fire truck you would think is fabulous and over distance
it is, but immediately in front it is not.
And so if you've got your 18 barn dogs and a couple of barn cats and running around,
if those can be secured somewhere where they're not immediately in danger of
(04:57):
being injured themselves or sometimes equipment scares dogs and we don't also
want our responders to be in danger from them.
That's also a really important thing to think about as basic protocol.
In addition, I was just thinking as you were talking about a And a little barn
cat who likes to go for joyrides as well. Exactly. Okay.
(05:21):
Making sure she doesn't take a trip to the hospital. So just going back to the
basic information of the address and how simple that is and also how that might be overlooked.
Absolutely. If they can have the address listed in as many places as possible,
(05:41):
especially if there is a landline phone that somebody is likely to be calling
from, definitely have that information near a landline if somebody is likely to use that.
And then also just personal responsibility from people that are on the property.
They should know the address.
You should know the address where you are at almost any point throughout your travels in the day.
(06:04):
That's, it's important information should something happen.
If the person most likely to be able to remain calm throughout the call could
be the one that calls us, that is fabulous.
We don't all handle stress, anxiety, seeing our friends injured or blood or bone.
People's responses are very different.
(06:25):
It doesn't make us bad or good, but it does make us more likely to be able to
communicate more effectively.
And if that person can be the person that calls, that's optimal for us.
And even though I think I speak fairly clearly, I do have an accent and sometimes
words can get really confusing.
(06:46):
And so I might not be the person to call.
And having been around horses my entire life and many horse farms,
I know that it really is a matter of when rather than if that there's going to be a 911 call.
So I think that's important information to think about who is going going to
(07:09):
be the person to actually make that call.
And that being said, we have absolutely fabulous dispatchers who will do their
very best to get information from whomever calls.
It is easier and facilitates a quicker response if we can understand somebody
and if they can clearly answer our questions so that we can get help started.
(07:32):
If we have the address, it's either screenshotted in our phone,
it's written on a whiteboard in the barn, or it's pinned up in the barn somewhere.
What are the issues with calling from cell phones sometimes?
It's very location-specific. And I would say, of course, we can get close, but not exact.
(07:56):
And if you can give us the exact street address, that is absolutely the most helpful thing.
If not, we'll work and find your location and get the responders close.
But it is very helpful to have a street address, especially if you're calling
from a non-landline cell phone or satellite phone or people have all sorts of
different modalities now.
(08:17):
But the actual physical address is really important.
Then in addition, our dispatcher will ask you to repeat that information to
make certain that we've got it down correctly. We certainly don't want to send
somebody lights and sirens to the wrong address when you need us.
So we ask for patience when we're asking someone to repeat information.
(08:38):
It seems like it takes forever, but the three or four seconds it takes us to
confirm information is so much better than responders going minutes out of their
way and not getting to you as quickly as they could.
While you're clarifying information and it may seem for the person calling that
things aren't going quick enough because there's this distortion of time when
(09:01):
you're in a trauma situation.
What are the next things that a caller might expect? expect.
I'll just go through what they'll hear from us. 9-1-1, what is the address of the emergency?
After you give us the address, if you're not calling from a landline that confirms
that address, we will ask you to repeat it.
(09:24):
You have told us along the way somewhere that someone is injured on the property.
The dispatcher may or may not ask exactly where on the property that the patient is located.
We try to get all of the information necessary to get the responders right to
the patient as quickly as we can.
So there might be a couple of additional questions, depending on the circumstances
(09:44):
and the dispatcher, that might help us to verify.
If there is a gate code that's required for the responders to get in,
give us that information at that point in time.
We won't know that you have a gate code, so we won't know to ask.
After we've received all of that information, we will ask you what's the phone
number that you're calling from just to make sure that it's a match in our system.
(10:08):
If it's not, which is rare, but we will ask you to repeat that.
Occasionally, some people call over a VoIP phone or there's other technologies
that don't necessarily come through correctly in our system.
So we may ask you to repeat the phone number.
And then always, regardless of what you've told us to then up to that point,
we will ask, okay, tell me exactly what happened.
(10:30):
And at that point, we need you to give us a brief synopsis of exactly what you're calling about.
Thank you for sharing that. And you You obviously deal with hundreds of calls
for a variety of different situations.
Thinking about equestrians, what are the most common things that you might get
(10:51):
calls for with equestrian properties?
And how might the dispatcher help with those?
Okay, tell me exactly what happened. It's as open-ended as it gets, really.
And what we don't really want is three days ago, blah, blah, blah.
We really want to know what just happened, what you're calling about and what
(11:13):
the symptoms or what the issue of the moment is or are.
With equestrians, we see accidents with people falling off a horse,
getting run over a horse, getting kicked by a horse.
Many accidents on equestrian properties sometimes don't involve a horse.
Somebody ran over themselves with a tractor or pinned themselves somewhere with
(11:35):
a piece of equipment or fell off of the roof. for.
There's all sorts of things that can happen on a farm property.
And if you can just give us the basics, then our dispatchers will understand
where to go from that point forward and can ask you some more incident specific questions.
And again, this is just for Boulder County. We use an internationally approved
(11:56):
software that allows us some protection for liability and also to provide the
very highest standard of standardized patient care.
And so after we find out exactly what happened, we'll ask you if you're with the patient.
If you're not immediately with the patient, we'll ask you if it's possible for
(12:17):
you to get with the patient.
First-hand information is of great value to us.
And patient care instruction, what kind of things other than CPR can you suggest?
Medicine administration? If somebody were to be having a baby,
we can help you get birth to a baby.
(12:37):
If somebody's choking, we can assist with the Heimlich maneuver,
use of the AED, airway maintenance cpr
control bleeding instruction tourniquet instruction
use of narcan and naloxone administration i guess some medication administration
in terms of if somebody's got an epi pen those sorts of things very i don't
(13:01):
want to say rudimentary but something that a A civilian can inform a civilian.
And all of our dispatchers are AHA, BLS certified.
But that doesn't mean that in a non-visual environment, we should really be
giving instruction other than what our protocols allow us. And that's pretty
(13:22):
much what I just went over with you.
Thank you. And could you just clarify what those BLS stand for as well?
American Heart Association and BLS is basic life support.
Those are things that most people would learn in a CPR class.
Our classes go a little bit further. We do, we take CPR class on neonates,
(13:44):
infants, children, and adults, basic life support, as opposed to the advanced
life support that you'll receive from a paramedic.
Thank you. And so while you're gathering all this information and sharing instructive help as well,
are you dispatching at the same time or are you waiting till you've got everything clarified?
(14:09):
It depends on what the answers to our questions are.
So once we find out exactly what happened, if somebody calls in and said,
one of my students, we were talking, he slumped to the floor,
he's not awake and I don't think he's breathing.
We dispatch help right then. If somebody calls and says,
(14:29):
my son slipped and twisted his thumb or something like that,
we might have a few more questions to ask before we send a response to know
if we need an emergent response, a non-emergent response,
ambulance, engine those sorts of things and because
horses are such high risk animals mostly
(14:50):
these days they use for sport and recreation although there are working horses
such as police horses there's horses in the amish community ranch horses and
even in other countries there's many working equids.
I'm aware that head injuries can be quite common being around horses.
(15:14):
And do you have any thoughts about preventing head injuries and what you might
do if somebody's experiencing a concussion?
If somebody calls us and
said somebody fell off a horse or was thrown off
a horse or propelled off of a horse and landed
(15:36):
on their head that is a that's a very serious matter to us obviously if they've
got a helmet on that could help save their life one of the things that i would
caution anybody that is either involved in an incident themselves or is assisting
somebody who's come come off a horse,
has a suspected head or neck injury, and has a helmet on, do not remove the helmet.
(16:01):
You can do so much damage to a neck by trying to pry a helmet off.
And the falls I've witnessed many times that the helmet is damaged in such a
way that it's not easy. You might need assistance to get it off.
And so absolutely have a paramedic evaluate the patient.
And a lot of times they'll leave their helmet on until they get to the hospital.
(16:24):
That's really important information. Thank you for sharing that.
In terms of going to the hospital, what are the criteria for going to the.
A hospital, who is that up to to decide where the patient might go?
Ultimately, it's up to the responders. It's not really even information that we take from somebody.
(16:47):
We'll tell somebody, speak to the responders about where you'd like to go.
Oftentimes, they are more than happy to take somebody, depending on what the
call load is and what their day looks like, to the hospital of their choice within reason.
And sometimes it depends on, we have load schedules that let us know when hospitals ERs are full.
(17:09):
And we're super blessed in Boulder County that very rarely happens.
But if it does, if there were a mass casualty incident on one of the highways
with multiple casualties or something and a particular ER was full,
then we wouldn't take you there.
But normally, dependent on the seriousness of the issue, there are trauma centers.
(17:32):
Boulder Community Hospital has a level two trauma center.
There are trauma centers that we would take a more critical patient to.
And then depending on what the responders see when they get there,
they may even call for a helicopter. I have talked about vicarious trauma in
different contexts in other podcast episodes.
(17:54):
And I am curious if we might touch in on just how all the important people that
work with you, how do you support them not taking their work home with them at the end of the day?
We have a robust peer support group.
We have availability for mental health counseling almost 24-7.
(18:19):
It is a responsibility of everyone that works here to understand when we might need that help.
And we try to keep an eye out for each other because sometimes you don't know when you need that help.
But I feel like we do a very good job and have really good support from our
command staff in terms of all things related to mental health,
(18:43):
stress, and work culture.
I'm very happy and encouraged to hear that, and I hope that other agencies also
follow suit with your robust programs.
We've covered a lot of really important basics that perhaps people don't necessarily think about,
(19:04):
but are quite simple preventative factors when you think about them in terms of being around horses.
Is there anything that you might like to add at this point?
I would to encourage anybody that's calling 911 for any reason to be very patient
(19:25):
with the questions that they're being asked.
They are not frivolous. They're not off the cuff.
They're not for no reason. And when somebody is in a situation,
thinks that help might be being delayed for some reason, the majority of the
questions that we're asking, help has already been started.
(19:46):
We're updating the responders as they're en route.
We're gathering information to know if additional pieces of equipment might
be required or more personnel, all of those sorts of things.
So there's a reason behind every question we ask, no matter how inane.
When you have visual, when you have eyes on this situation, we don't.
(20:09):
We have to take everything from a blank slate and build a picture with information
that we get from the caller.
And so it helps us so much if somebody just will patiently answer the questions.
I think what you just said, knowing that there are very important scripted questions,
(20:30):
hopefully that might take a little of the panic out of a caller.
And also working with trauma generally, time can get distorted as well, I think, for people.
So it might seem like forever getting help.
But what's the typical response time? And I'll say in Boulder County,
(20:54):
there's not really a typical response time.
It's so dependent on the location of the incident.
We dispatch for not only Boulder County Sheriff's Office, but we dispatch for
Lafayette, Louisville, Erie Police Departments. The Sheriff's Department provides
services for Superior and Lyons.
(21:14):
We dispatch for the officers in Nederland.
And then 23 fire and EMS agencies that provide services to all of those areas.
So if somebody is calling us and they're three blocks down from the fire station
in Erie and that station happens to be manned at that time, the response time could be three minutes.
(21:35):
If someone up in Gold
Hill calls and their volunteer
fire department has to stand up from dinner go get in their truck drive to the
fire station get their equipment and then drive all the way up to Gold Hill
the response time can be 25 minutes if the ambulance has to come from the the city of Boulder,
(21:58):
their response time might not be much better.
So it is very location dependent and resource dependent.
I would say in the county, in what we call the flats, not necessarily the mountainous
areas, our response times are anywhere between five and ten minutes.
That's helpful to understand and just thinking about Baldock County having such
(22:24):
a wide range of terrain with many flat areas and plains and then difficult mountainous areas as well.
That's valuable information just to think about location and availability of resources.
Would the 911 dispatcher ever advise somebody to come to the hospital by a car? How does that work?
(22:50):
Very rarely. I can almost not imagine a situation.
During the flood in 2013, there were people that we could not get to,
but we certainly wouldn't have advised them going out on their own either.
If we assume that if somebody is calling 911, that they're calling for help
and we do our very best to send them help.
(23:11):
Thank you so much. I'm very grateful for you joining me today and sharing this
information, helping us assist you and others. Thanks, Trudy.
Welcome to InScape Quests, where insightful conversations redefine perspectives.
I'm your host, Trudy Howley. Join me as together we delve into discussions about
relationships, work, and passions, unlocking insights that may shape our lives.
(00:24):
A warm welcome to my guest, Colleen Kane. In today's episode,
we're exploring a practical topic that at times merges calm and chaos,
the experience of being around horses and the sudden need to dial 911.
Thank you for having me, Trudy. I had a life-changing horse riding accident decades ago.
(00:46):
I've never been the same since. And I think it's really important to get down
to some basics of accident and injury.
And I think both of us as equestrians are big believers in being proactive.
And you have a very special expertise in dealing with 911 calls and dispatches.
(01:11):
I work for Boulder County Sheriff's Office in the communications department.
I am the Emergency Medical Dispatch Program Coordinator, and that means I'm
involved in training our new dispatchers on all of our medical protocols,
how we handle 911 calls that are medically related, and then doing follow-up
(01:32):
quality control after the fact by listening to the calls that they've taken
and providing re-education and positive feedback,
negative feedback sometimes.
Times, mostly just things to work on for the future.
So you and the people you work with, supervise and train, are just doing an
incredibly valuable job.
(01:54):
And as equestrians, I think it's important to think about that 81% of equestrians
get injured at some point in their riding career,
And that is a pretty high statistic.
It's incredible. It's 83% of horse riding injuries are caused by falls and that
(02:17):
horse riding is considered more dangerous than skiing, motorcycling, football, and rugby.
There are, of course, injuries that happen on the ground as well.
So what is the number one piece of information anybody being around horses needs
(02:37):
to know about calling 911?
Is the address. And the more information, especially in a rural location,
that we can receive from the caller, the better.
So we will answer the phone, 911.
What is the address of the emergency? agency. If the callers can be familiar
with the street address at their location, we might not always know the name of the farm or barn.
(03:02):
In addition, the dispatcher may ask if you've got multiple gates,
let them know where the third gate on the left or information is specific to
the property that can help the responders get as quickly as possible to the
location of the patient.
If there's a gate code, make sure everybody knows to provide that information.
(03:25):
If there's a certain way that traffic moves best across the property,
let the dispatcher know that information.
People that call us with horse properties are always very interested in us knowing
that horses are there and asking us to shut down lights and sirens.
(03:46):
We're always happy to put that information into the call.
We can't always guarantee that our responding agencies are able to do once they're
on the property, but sometimes they have protocols that don't allow them to shut down.
If they're turning off of a busy street into your property, they still have
to allow the traffic surrounding them and oncoming traffic to know that they're there.
(04:08):
That's really helpful information. And hopefully other people on the farm can
perhaps also encourage people who are riding to dismount or secure loose horses as well,
if lights and sirens might be arriving.
Loose horses, loose dogs, loose barn cat, anything that normally we send an
(04:33):
ambulance and almost always at least one fire truck responds depending on what the incident is.
The visibility from a fire truck you would think is fabulous and over distance
it is, but immediately in front it is not.
And so if you've got your 18 barn dogs and a couple of barn cats and running around,
if those can be secured somewhere where they're not immediately in danger of
(04:57):
being injured themselves or sometimes equipment scares dogs and we don't also
want our responders to be in danger from them.
That's also a really important thing to think about as basic protocol.
In addition, I was just thinking as you were talking about a And a little barn
cat who likes to go for joyrides as well. Exactly. Okay.
(05:21):
Making sure she doesn't take a trip to the hospital. So just going back to the
basic information of the address and how simple that is and also how that might be overlooked.
Absolutely. If they can have the address listed in as many places as possible,
(05:41):
especially if there is a landline phone that somebody is likely to be calling
from, definitely have that information near a landline if somebody is likely to use that.
And then also just personal responsibility from people that are on the property.
They should know the address.
You should know the address where you are at almost any point throughout your travels in the day.
(06:04):
That's, it's important information should something happen.
If the person most likely to be able to remain calm throughout the call could
be the one that calls us, that is fabulous.
We don't all handle stress, anxiety, seeing our friends injured or blood or bone.
People's responses are very different.
(06:25):
It doesn't make us bad or good, but it does make us more likely to be able to
communicate more effectively.
And if that person can be the person that calls, that's optimal for us.
And even though I think I speak fairly clearly, I do have an accent and sometimes
words can get really confusing.
(06:46):
And so I might not be the person to call.
And having been around horses my entire life and many horse farms,
I know that it really is a matter of when rather than if that there's going to be a 911 call.
So I think that's important information to think about who is going going to
(07:09):
be the person to actually make that call.
And that being said, we have absolutely fabulous dispatchers who will do their
very best to get information from whomever calls.
It is easier and facilitates a quicker response if we can understand somebody
and if they can clearly answer our questions so that we can get help started.
(07:32):
If we have the address, it's either screenshotted in our phone,
it's written on a whiteboard in the barn, or it's pinned up in the barn somewhere.
What are the issues with calling from cell phones sometimes?
It's very location-specific. And I would say, of course, we can get close, but not exact.
(07:56):
And if you can give us the exact street address, that is absolutely the most helpful thing.
If not, we'll work and find your location and get the responders close.
But it is very helpful to have a street address, especially if you're calling
from a non-landline cell phone or satellite phone or people have all sorts of
different modalities now.
(08:17):
But the actual physical address is really important.
Then in addition, our dispatcher will ask you to repeat that information to
make certain that we've got it down correctly. We certainly don't want to send
somebody lights and sirens to the wrong address when you need us.
So we ask for patience when we're asking someone to repeat information.
(08:38):
It seems like it takes forever, but the three or four seconds it takes us to
confirm information is so much better than responders going minutes out of their
way and not getting to you as quickly as they could.
While you're clarifying information and it may seem for the person calling that
things aren't going quick enough because there's this distortion of time when
(09:01):
you're in a trauma situation.
What are the next things that a caller might expect? expect.
I'll just go through what they'll hear from us. 9-1-1, what is the address of the emergency?
After you give us the address, if you're not calling from a landline that confirms
that address, we will ask you to repeat it.
(09:24):
You have told us along the way somewhere that someone is injured on the property.
The dispatcher may or may not ask exactly where on the property that the patient is located.
We try to get all of the information necessary to get the responders right to
the patient as quickly as we can.
So there might be a couple of additional questions, depending on the circumstances
(09:44):
and the dispatcher, that might help us to verify.
If there is a gate code that's required for the responders to get in,
give us that information at that point in time.
We won't know that you have a gate code, so we won't know to ask.
After we've received all of that information, we will ask you what's the phone
number that you're calling from just to make sure that it's a match in our system.
(10:08):
If it's not, which is rare, but we will ask you to repeat that.
Occasionally, some people call over a VoIP phone or there's other technologies
that don't necessarily come through correctly in our system.
So we may ask you to repeat the phone number.
And then always, regardless of what you've told us to then up to that point,
we will ask, okay, tell me exactly what happened.
(10:30):
And at that point, we need you to give us a brief synopsis of exactly what you're calling about.
Thank you for sharing that. And you You obviously deal with hundreds of calls
for a variety of different situations.
Thinking about equestrians, what are the most common things that you might get
(10:51):
calls for with equestrian properties?
And how might the dispatcher help with those?
Okay, tell me exactly what happened. It's as open-ended as it gets, really.
And what we don't really want is three days ago, blah, blah, blah.
We really want to know what just happened, what you're calling about and what
(11:13):
the symptoms or what the issue of the moment is or are.
With equestrians, we see accidents with people falling off a horse,
getting run over a horse, getting kicked by a horse.
Many accidents on equestrian properties sometimes don't involve a horse.
Somebody ran over themselves with a tractor or pinned themselves somewhere with
(11:35):
a piece of equipment or fell off of the roof. for.
There's all sorts of things that can happen on a farm property.
And if you can just give us the basics, then our dispatchers will understand
where to go from that point forward and can ask you some more incident specific questions.
And again, this is just for Boulder County. We use an internationally approved
(11:56):
software that allows us some protection for liability and also to provide the
very highest standard of standardized patient care.
And so after we find out exactly what happened, we'll ask you if you're with the patient.
If you're not immediately with the patient, we'll ask you if it's possible for
(12:17):
you to get with the patient.
First-hand information is of great value to us.
And patient care instruction, what kind of things other than CPR can you suggest?
Medicine administration? If somebody were to be having a baby,
we can help you get birth to a baby.
(12:37):
If somebody's choking, we can assist with the Heimlich maneuver,
use of the AED, airway maintenance cpr
control bleeding instruction tourniquet instruction
use of narcan and naloxone administration i guess some medication administration
in terms of if somebody's got an epi pen those sorts of things very i don't
(13:01):
want to say rudimentary but something that a A civilian can inform a civilian.
And all of our dispatchers are AHA, BLS certified.
But that doesn't mean that in a non-visual environment, we should really be
giving instruction other than what our protocols allow us. And that's pretty
(13:22):
much what I just went over with you.
Thank you. And could you just clarify what those BLS stand for as well?
American Heart Association and BLS is basic life support.
Those are things that most people would learn in a CPR class.
Our classes go a little bit further. We do, we take CPR class on neonates,
(13:44):
infants, children, and adults, basic life support, as opposed to the advanced
life support that you'll receive from a paramedic.
Thank you. And so while you're gathering all this information and sharing instructive help as well,
are you dispatching at the same time or are you waiting till you've got everything clarified?
(14:09):
It depends on what the answers to our questions are.
So once we find out exactly what happened, if somebody calls in and said,
one of my students, we were talking, he slumped to the floor,
he's not awake and I don't think he's breathing.
We dispatch help right then. If somebody calls and says,
(14:29):
my son slipped and twisted his thumb or something like that,
we might have a few more questions to ask before we send a response to know
if we need an emergent response, a non-emergent response,
ambulance, engine those sorts of things and because
horses are such high risk animals mostly
(14:50):
these days they use for sport and recreation although there are working horses
such as police horses there's horses in the amish community ranch horses and
even in other countries there's many working equids.
I'm aware that head injuries can be quite common being around horses.
(15:14):
And do you have any thoughts about preventing head injuries and what you might
do if somebody's experiencing a concussion?
If somebody calls us and
said somebody fell off a horse or was thrown off
a horse or propelled off of a horse and landed
(15:36):
on their head that is a that's a very serious matter to us obviously if they've
got a helmet on that could help save their life one of the things that i would
caution anybody that is either involved in an incident themselves or is assisting
somebody who's come come off a horse,
has a suspected head or neck injury, and has a helmet on, do not remove the helmet.
(16:01):
You can do so much damage to a neck by trying to pry a helmet off.
And the falls I've witnessed many times that the helmet is damaged in such a
way that it's not easy. You might need assistance to get it off.
And so absolutely have a paramedic evaluate the patient.
And a lot of times they'll leave their helmet on until they get to the hospital.
(16:24):
That's really important information. Thank you for sharing that.
In terms of going to the hospital, what are the criteria for going to the.
A hospital, who is that up to to decide where the patient might go?
Ultimately, it's up to the responders. It's not really even information that we take from somebody.
(16:47):
We'll tell somebody, speak to the responders about where you'd like to go.
Oftentimes, they are more than happy to take somebody, depending on what the
call load is and what their day looks like, to the hospital of their choice within reason.
And sometimes it depends on, we have load schedules that let us know when hospitals ERs are full.
(17:09):
And we're super blessed in Boulder County that very rarely happens.
But if it does, if there were a mass casualty incident on one of the highways
with multiple casualties or something and a particular ER was full,
then we wouldn't take you there.
But normally, dependent on the seriousness of the issue, there are trauma centers.
(17:32):
Boulder Community Hospital has a level two trauma center.
There are trauma centers that we would take a more critical patient to.
And then depending on what the responders see when they get there,
they may even call for a helicopter. I have talked about vicarious trauma in
different contexts in other podcast episodes.
(17:54):
And I am curious if we might touch in on just how all the important people that
work with you, how do you support them not taking their work home with them at the end of the day?
We have a robust peer support group.
We have availability for mental health counseling almost 24-7.
(18:19):
It is a responsibility of everyone that works here to understand when we might need that help.
And we try to keep an eye out for each other because sometimes you don't know when you need that help.
But I feel like we do a very good job and have really good support from our
command staff in terms of all things related to mental health,
(18:43):
stress, and work culture.
I'm very happy and encouraged to hear that, and I hope that other agencies also
follow suit with your robust programs.
We've covered a lot of really important basics that perhaps people don't necessarily think about,
(19:04):
but are quite simple preventative factors when you think about them in terms of being around horses.
Is there anything that you might like to add at this point?
I would to encourage anybody that's calling 911 for any reason to be very patient
(19:25):
with the questions that they're being asked.
They are not frivolous. They're not off the cuff.
They're not for no reason. And when somebody is in a situation,
thinks that help might be being delayed for some reason, the majority of the
questions that we're asking, help has already been started.
(19:46):
We're updating the responders as they're en route.
We're gathering information to know if additional pieces of equipment might
be required or more personnel, all of those sorts of things.
So there's a reason behind every question we ask, no matter how inane.
When you have visual, when you have eyes on this situation, we don't.
(20:09):
We have to take everything from a blank slate and build a picture with information
that we get from the caller.
And so it helps us so much if somebody just will patiently answer the questions.
I think what you just said, knowing that there are very important scripted questions,
(20:30):
hopefully that might take a little of the panic out of a caller.
And also working with trauma generally, time can get distorted as well, I think, for people.
So it might seem like forever getting help.
But what's the typical response time? And I'll say in Boulder County,
(20:54):
there's not really a typical response time.
It's so dependent on the location of the incident.
We dispatch for not only Boulder County Sheriff's Office, but we dispatch for
Lafayette, Louisville, Erie Police Departments. The Sheriff's Department provides
services for Superior and Lyons.
(21:14):
We dispatch for the officers in Nederland.
And then 23 fire and EMS agencies that provide services to all of those areas.
So if somebody is calling us and they're three blocks down from the fire station
in Erie and that station happens to be manned at that time, the response time could be three minutes.
(21:35):
If someone up in Gold
Hill calls and their volunteer
fire department has to stand up from dinner go get in their truck drive to the
fire station get their equipment and then drive all the way up to Gold Hill
the response time can be 25 minutes if the ambulance has to come from the the city of Boulder,
(21:58):
their response time might not be much better.
So it is very location dependent and resource dependent.
I would say in the county, in what we call the flats, not necessarily the mountainous
areas, our response times are anywhere between five and ten minutes.
That's helpful to understand and just thinking about Baldock County having such
(22:24):
a wide range of terrain with many flat areas and plains and then difficult mountainous areas as well.
That's valuable information just to think about location and availability of resources.
Would the 911 dispatcher ever advise somebody to come to the hospital by a car? How does that work?
(22:50):
Very rarely. I can almost not imagine a situation.
During the flood in 2013, there were people that we could not get to,
but we certainly wouldn't have advised them going out on their own either.
If we assume that if somebody is calling 911, that they're calling for help
and we do our very best to send them help.
(23:11):
Thank you so much. I'm very grateful for you joining me today and sharing this
information, helping us assist you and others. Thanks, Trudy.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Boysober
Have you ever wondered what life might be like if you stopped worrying about being wanted, and focused on understanding what you actually want? That was the question Hope Woodard asked herself after a string of situationships inspired her to take a break from sex and dating. She went "boysober," a personal concept that sparked a global movement among women looking to prioritize themselves over men. Now, Hope is looking to expand the ways we explore our relationship to relationships. Taking a bold, unfiltered look into modern love, romance, and self-discovery, Boysober will dive into messy stories about dating, sex, love, friendship, and breaking generational patterns—all with humor, vulnerability, and a fresh perspective.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.