Curing the common cold 1 Million at a time

Surprise! Yet another drug product that doesn't do what it is advertised to do.  Last week, the makers of Airborne settled a false advertising lawsuit for $23.3 million.  Before you blame the lawyers and start adding this to your stories in the now infamous McDonald's burn case category, you should know that the Airborne company had projected sales of $300 million for its most recently concluded fiscal year.  

Think about that for a minute... $300 MILLION dollars of sales.  That's a lot of people buying this stuff.  Personally, I find it all fascinating:  the same forces that cured polio and made progress staving off full-blown AIDS have yet to figure out a way to combat the common cold, but wait...  It's a TEACHER who suddenly cracked the code with a mix of vitamin C and zinc.  Lovely. 

Not as brilliant, however, as the marketing plan behind this genius product. Airborne even made "Oprah" and "Live With Regis and Kelly."  Airborne then changed its advertising campaign when a plaintiff filed suit against the company in March, 2006.  ABC news then disclosed a report that the company's clinical trials were not conducted by doctors or scientists, but rather they were carried out by two laypeople. Ya can't make this stuff up.  

But because Airborne is classified as a "supplement" rather than a "drug", it can be sold without first being proven effective.  Have fun shopping at GNC everyone. Let me know how that works out for ya. 

Post Script:  Tamiflu- a Roche prescription drug that has been proven effective at treating the flu, will carry a new warning.  The new warning notes that there have been problems related to this drug that have proven FATAL.  

Here's my advice:   don't get sick. 

Does EMS Need To Call 911?

Men's health had this article published recently. The comments to the article that I have read so far are dead on.   Click the link and take a gander. 

CC Rider

I just finished a three-night ACLS course given through Nassau County VEEB, and I loved every minute of it. I have been to many classes, given by many different instructors.  Truly, this was one of the best instructed courses I have ever attended.  The student/teacher ratio was about 4 to 1 at all times except during lecture and movie presentation.  The instructors were very knowledgeable; and made themselves available both before and after class to answer any questions.  Equally impressive to me was the fact that the instructors somehow created a chemistry in the class wherein every student helped one another. Notwithstanding, the students were all EMT-CC or higher, except for me and one other very nice girl.  What an amazingly refreshing experience all around.  I passed my practicals and writtens first time around too.  Go me. In any event, its a good feeling to be part of a group so committed to what they do on so many different levels. Just like most attorneys (YEAH RIGHT!).  Can't wait to start my EMT-CC course in september. T minus 5 months or so. Get your bodies ready everyone. 

No Guts, No Glory

The norovirus and I know each other very well now, since it introduced itself to me last Sunday.  There I was- writhing in pain on my own bedroom floor from the stomach cramps. No, wait... I was sitting with my face buried in the trash can.... no wait... the sink... no wait.... the bath tub... no wait... the garbage bag...no wait... just vomiting everywhere, and in a 25 foot radius, like a rotating, vomiting sprinkler head. 

 I couldn't speak.  I couldn't control my bodily functions. My princess cried, while my power ranger tried to calm her.  Told my wife to call my brother and sister EMTs to take me to the hospital. Quick response. Had every EMT from my department, and about 20 firefighters in my house.  My kids watched.  My wife told everyone I was exaggerating.  And the norovirus and I snuggled together in the gurney.  How embarrassing. How humiliating. I was able to mutter that I wanted my own company within the department to transport. Caught hell for that the next day. Apparently, that request insulted everyone who wasn't in my company.... gimme a break and HTFU!!!  There wasn't much left inside of me. I was spilling my guts out, but I'm not talking about the obvious.  I'm talking about my dignity. I had nothing left of me by the time I reached the hospital.  

I didn't much like being on the bus looking up at my company's EMTs.  I much more prefer being an EMT looking down at my patient.  

My princess and my power ranger, well, they love coming to my 'house', running around the apparatus floor wearing one of my tar-ridden fireproof turnout gear gloves, shining my flashlight, and even sleigh riding in my helmet when it snows enough.  They love taking out a steth and listening to me whisper sweet nothings, and wrapping the BP cuff around each other's heads.  But lately, they don't like firefighters and medics.  They pan their faces when my pager goes off now, for they know there is someone calling for me and the other EMTs- someone with no guts- or worse, someone with a princess or power ranger of their own, watching it all, helplessly, and now memory-scarred.  

My power ranger still says he wants to be a firefighter.  My little girl still wants to be a 'princess doctor'.  They both know now that walking each of those paths requires more than just fighting fires, or treating sick princesses.  This all taught to them by my friend the norovirus.  With friends like that, who needs enemies.  It's all chillingly ironic. 

Hey, All You Starbucks Freaks... HTFU!

This video is dedicated to all the wonderful employees of my law office, and those at the courthouse who had to stay home because they were 'buried' under the one inch coating of snow we got the other day, or they 'had' to leave early due to the 'severe' weather conditions. HTFU!!! Major props to MDOD for the find....

Moving Ahead

 Advanced spiritual people such as Buddha, Christ and their immediate students seem to be always painted with golden haloes around their heads.  I don't know if it's because some artists can actually see Auras, or whether they want others to think they do. But it appears as far back as time itself.  In Australia's remote West Kimberleys you can even find prehistoric cave paintings, many thousands of years old, depicting people with golden haloes.  (By the way, I did spend last weekend visiting museums in New York City with my family and some friends- just in case you're wondering what the genesis of that factoid is.)

As most of you know, there isn't a night that goes by that I don't tuck my kids into bed and put them to sleep.  My princess is 3, and my power ranger is 4.   It's somewhat of a challenge every night when I lay in my son's bed with the lights out.  He usually asks me to tell him a bedtime story, and I always start it off with "Once upon a time, far, far away..."  But tonight, I decided to tell him about his own past.  I told him how 'when he was a baby', I lulled him at night to my best rendition of Harry Chapin's "Cats In The Cradle".  He and I used to call it the "Bum Bum" song- much easier for him to have pronounced.  "Can you sing it to me tonight daddy?"  And as I did, and his eyelids slowly shut, I could swear I saw cartoon-like figurines coming out of his 

precious little sleepy head- giraffes, fluffy rabbits, puppy dogs, baby elephants, ponies and lollipops.  

Harry Chapin died in a freak car accident right here in Jericho, New York on the Long Island Expressway in 1981.  Frank B., an old timer firefighter in my department told me that he was one of many who responded to the accident back then.  "I picked up his head from the backseat," he said very matter of factly, looking hard into my eyes with a straight face.  I wonder what Harry's aura was like. All Frank B. said he saw was "a lot of blood". 

 

Gotta go and find a mirror now.  See if I have one of these aura things around my head.   I think it has something to do with my hair loss. There's gotta be someone I can sue. 

The Blue Light Special

A firefighter, responding in his personal vehicle, is seriously injured when he swerves to avoid a truck at an intersection and skids into a city bus...

A volunteer EMS responder is killed in a car crash on his way to the Fire Station for a cardiac call...

Perhaps you've read about such accidents in an emergency services publication. On the other hand, maybe one of them hit closer to home, and the story made your local newspaper. Either way, the news isn't good. According to the NFPA, fire department emergency vehicles were involved in an estimated 14,900 collisions in 2001 while responding to, or returning from, incidents. Firefighters' personal vehicles were involved in 1,325 collisions. Together, they resulted in 1,100 firefighter injuries.


24 firefighters - 17 of whom died in crashes - were killed in 2001 while responding to or returning from alarms: the second most common activity resulting in firefighter fatalities.According to U.S. Fire Administration statistics, nearly 20–25% of accidental deaths in the fire service are related to vehicles, and many, if not most, of these accidents involve intersections. A study published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine (December 2002), “Occupational Fatalities in Emergency Medical Services: A Hidden Crisis,” states the leading cause of occupational fatalities for EMS personnel during the study period (1992–1997) was transportation incidents (86/114 fatalities).

Section 375, subsection 41, sub-subsection 4 of the New York State Vehicle and Traffic Law reads as such:

4. Blue light. a. One blue light may be affixed to any motor vehicle
owned by a volunteer member of a fire department or on a motor vehicle
owned by a member of such person's family residing in the same household
or by a business enterprise in which such person has a proprietary
interest or by which he or she is employed....

That's right.  The good people in Albany, New York say that ONE blue light is allowed.  Not two, not blue and white, just ONE, BLUE light.  The law hasn't changed in more than 20 years.  Makes me feel like a kid again:

"Oh, please Mr. Lawmaker, gimme just one more light? Pretty please?!"

Well.... I hope you all join me in thanking our thoughtful lawmakers in Albany, and others like them for looking out for guys and gals like me, who may not make it to the next call because of the one light limitation.  Thanks for caring. Really. My wife and kids thank you too.  

And as for my brothers and sisters, lets be careful out there. I, for one, care about you. 

OK. Gotta go put my kids to sleep now. It's light's out time. Night night. 

Stoned

When I was a young lad, I used to think Sharon Stone was hot. I'm all grown up now. She's not hot anymore. She's ugly with a capital F. And she should learn to keep her mouth shut if she has things to say like her most recent defamation of my country.   

Sharon....leave.....now. 

This is my brain on drugs

Props and credit goes to Emergency Emily for this one.... It's what's inside that counts, right?

It's been like spinning plates for me this week.

This pretty much captures what my life has been like this week.

"Trust Me"

A client came into my law firm yesterday. He was scared. Genuinely scared. And he was a firefighter/EMT. He sat in the chair across from me in my office, and the first thing he said to me was, "I'm here because I trust you." He suspected he was going to be sued for discrimination. Even if he prevailed on such a case, he still would be scarred and marked for life. Think "The Rocket" Roger Clemens walking around with a halligan and a trauma bag. As I listened to his story, I felt it was more important to look into his eyes as he spoke rather than taking notes as I usually do. "I don't know what to do, Rich. Is this the end for me and my family?". I told him in no uncertain terms that there was no danger and that he did nothing wrong. He was thankful- both to God and to me. "I know I can believe you, Rich. Thanks." We finished up, and he gave me a Svengali-like bear hug. Royce Gracie, eat your heart out. He left my office a new man, ready to fight fires and rescue the injured.

I responded to a car accident that night. Three cars, and a lot of damage. A young girl, who was anunrestrained backseat passenger was walking around at the scene. No outside signs of DCAP-BTLS, but my suspicions ran high for internal bleeding. She must have called her parents before my bus arrived on scene, becase they came to the accident site. "Why aren't you taking her to the same hospital as the others? It's closer." Not much time to sit with them in consultation to explain the difference between a trauma center and the other hospital. I told them that I have two children of my own, and I would do the same thing for my kids as I would their daughter. "OK. We trust you are doing the right thing."

My kids are both sick today. They sound like seals when they cough, and elephants when they blow their noses. My house is, literally, a zoo. They take the medicine I give them so readily. I tell them that they will be better soon. "When, daddy?" "very very soon." They smile at me, and then they go downstairs to play.

I went to the gas station to fill my tank up before I hit up Dunkin' Donuts for some coffee and a bagel. I had to pay the attendant before he would turn the pump on. Guess he didn't trust me.

Face Mold

Ok.... someone just found my blog site using the search term "lady face mold". Houston, we have a problem.

Breath Sounds

It gets all too overwhelming for me sometimes. Rarely, but sometimes. And that's too often. One thought turns into two, then five, then five million. When it snowballs like that, I can't catch my breath. So usually I take a long drag from a Marlboro Light. Go figure.



It was noisier at first in the Trial Assignment Part courtroom today. An annoying cacophony. Kinda like a bunch of lawyers all saying the words "peas and squash, peas and squash" to one another, really not talking about anything at all. Then Judge Sweeney took the bench, the bailiff called for order, and it got real quiet, real fast. I swear, someone farted. It was gross. No one flinched. No one moved. No one made a face. All for fear of being removed from the courtroom and missing the calendar call. All anyone could do was breathe in the stale, thick air. Amidst the quiet, the EMT in me couldn't help but take such opportunity to fine tune my caregiver skills, so I listened to the bodies around me for crackles, rales, and I think i even detected a heart murmur, all without a stethoscope, without getting out of my chair, and without flinching from the old smelly lawyer man ass gas. Did I mention my ear is bionic? Lindsay Wagner, eat your heart out.





I got home relatively early. I promptly changed my clothes. That's when the pager went off. Signal 9. Female with chest pains over at the cablevision offices. I started to breathe heavier. I always do that though when I get a Signal 9 across the pager. It's exciting. A good exciting. So, no Marlboro Light. Go figure. We found the lady just hanging out in her boss' office. She's had this pain since the morning, or so she says. She was fine really. No shortness of breath.  But we packed her up in the bus and took her to the hospital. There were two other EMTs riding with me. One started to give the lady some aspirin. He was relatively new, so, we had this 5 second debate as to whether our protocol allowed us to administer the aspirin without asking Med Comm. I backed down, and listened to the lady's breath sounds instead. Her lungs sounded just like the breath sounds of the smelly lawyer man from this morning. So I put some blankets over her in case she farted.

My wife and daughter were home when I got back from the call. We started watching Americas Funniest Videos in bed. My wife took a phone call and went downstairs. I shut the lights off, and cooed my little princess to sleep. She rested her beautiful head on my chest. I think she was listening to my lungs.

You Don't Need Band Aids to Repair The World

I took my son to hockey practice the other day. Well, not really hockey practice. It's a class that teaches kids how to skate.  He switched recently from figure skates to hockey skates, so, he has to learn how to deal with the difference between the two.  I made my way up onto the bleachers along with the other parents all who were watching their kids on the ice.  Funny how we are so preoccupied with kids, yet we're never really accurate as to what makes them happy when we are buying toys for them.  Is it me, or does it seem to you too that the more expensive and elaborate the toy, the more adults think kids will like it, and the less kids actually like it. 

The little sister (not yet two years old)  of one of the kids on the ice was amongst us parents.  It was about 15 minutes into the skating lesson early in the morning, and already, as a group, we parents were running out of distractions for her- that is, until she became enthralled by a rather benign plastic band-aid dispenser that one of the moms found in a pocketbook scavenger hunt frenzy. There were no band-aids inside.  And it had the words in bold printed on it "REPAIR THE WORLD". 

I don't think the little girl's innocent, sweet baby blue eyes blinked for a good few 

minutes.  She stared at the contraption with this deep mantra printed upon it, certainly not able to read the words, but not for lack of trying.  She opened the container, then closed it. Then opened and closed it again.  First slowly, then fast, then slower again, all the time looking inside of it.   Those baby blues then looked right into mine as if to ask "How am I supposed to repair the world without any band-aids?" The baby girl spent the rest of the time just opening and closing the container over and over.  

 When the lesson was over, I helped my son off the ice.  We walked towards the bleachers together, while the next group of kids made their way towards the ice.  One of the kids, about my son's age, was crying, pleading with his dad not to make him go on the ice:

"Noooooo!!! I don't wanna gooooo!!!"

"But you said you wanted to be a hockey player when you grow up," his father said. 

My son became visibly sympathetic.  "You don't have to be a hockey player" my son told the crying boy.  "You won't get hurt.  And my dad is a paramedic so if you fall, he can make you better."  

As my son and I continued towards the bleachers,  the crying boy began to calm himself, and made his way onto the ice, albeit somewhat reluctantly still.  The wonderment from 

the exchange between the two boys hadn't yet left me.  And as I unlaced my son's skates, he kept his watchful eyes on that boy.  "I just want to make sure he is ok", my four year old son s

aid to me, as he struggled to peer towards the rink in the midst of my removing his gear.  It looked like that boy was fine.  His father appeared either relieved or exhausted, or both.  That father clutched his coffee and filled the seat of a vacating parent.  My son and I joined the group of families leaving the rink, holding hands.  The little girl with the band aid holder was right in front of us.  She stopped, turned towards my son, gave him the plastic ba

nd aid holder, and proceeded on her way right after flashing a grin.  

"Daddy, what's this?" asked my son, as he held the plastic piece up towards me.  "It holds band-aids".  "I want to give one to that boy," he pleaded.  I squeezed my son's hand just a little tighter and told him:  "You already did." As we walked, I saw his little grin out of the corner of my eye. My son couldn't read the words on the band-aid holder either.  But I knew he understood them.  

I went to work at my law firm the next day.  The desks of the associate attorneys in my law office, as well as my own, all are equipped with a box of tissues, each strategically placed within reach of the clients' chairs. I put an empty box of  band-aids next to the tissues in all of the offices just yesterday. I got a papercut on my finger later in the day. I couldn't find a band-aid. My staff thinks I'm off my rocker.  

I'm Not The Only One To Find This Life "Appealing"

The Next time you hear a siren, pull over.  There could be a lawyer on board an ambulance making his case for the benefit of dedication and compassion.   

If you want to play the video, click HERE and play it. Otherwise, read the story below.  

Rock on, brother Ned:

Lawyer Moonlights As St. Louis Paramedic
Created: 11/22/2007 5:08:02 PM
Last updated: 11/22/2007 5:11:38 PM


By Mike Bush

(KSDK) - Let's face it, lawyers are not always the most exciting people.

"I enjoy the research", says attorney Ned Fryer. "I like the
thought processes, the intellectual challenge."

So spellbinding he's not but Fryer is successful.
He's been on the fast track since he got out of college.

"My first job out of law school was being a law clerk for Judge William Webster," says Fryer.

That's the same William Webster who went on to direct both the FBI and the CIA.

These days, he's a partner with Bryan Cave, one of the largest law firms in the country. Even at 60, Fryer still works 12 hour days. And on weekends? Well you'd expect to see him on the golf course. You'd expect that but you'd be wrong.

Some lawyers get a reputation for chasing ambulances. Ned Fryer drives one. When he's got time off, he's a paramedic for the St. Louis Fire Department.

"As a paramedic you're licensed to provide what's called advanced life support," explains Fryer.

On most weekend days and some weekday nights you will find
Fryer saving lives.

It all began when he was asked to be on the board of directors of the old July 4 celebration, the VP fair. His job the first year was driving the golf cart for a paramedic.

"It was a very hot year, the first several years of the VP Fair was very hot and the crowds large and the medical emergencies were numerous. So we had a lot to do," recalled Fryer.

You could say the idea of helping people, appealed to him.
So he went to school to become an EMT and later a full-fledged paramedic.

"When they told me he was a lawyer, I said you guys have to be kidding!" says Yvonne Ewing, a paramedic supervisor with the St. Louis Fire Dept.

Even after seven years with the department there are still people who don't know that Ned Fryer leads a double life.

"Ned is conscientious," says Ewing. "He's a hard worker. He doesn't duck and dodge. He gets down and dirty just like the rest of us."

In this job, instead of the statute of limitations he worries about
ventricullar fibrulation. While according to Ned there's still an intellectual challenge, there's also an adrenaline rush.

"That's one aspect of this job as opposed to my other job. Rarely are the moments quite as exciting," says Fryer.

What his colleagues find most impressive is Ned's ability to
stay calm in any situation. What you might find most impressive is that Ned does it all for free.

"I'm paid but I contribute my salary to the St. Louis fire department life saving foundation," says Fryer.

The life saving foundation trains first responders and helps provide the department with up to date equipment and technology.

If you're keeping score at home that's 2 jobs. 12 hours a day.
Often 7 days a week. In making their case, some lawyers tend to overstate things. Ned, apparently is the master of the understatement.

"I have a very understanding family," he says.

So the next time you hear a siren, pull over. There could be a lawyer on board that
ambulance making his case for the benefits of dedication and compassion.

Ned Fryer enjoying a life where there's never a dull moment.

KSDK