In Reply to: The Coast Gaurd is now investigating this posted by Chris on March 16, 2009 at 11:12:33:

Officially I can't comment, so I'll use a lame sockpuppet to protect my employment. I should add that I am employed by none of the involved agencies.

However, I fail to see why this surprises anyone. I am employed as a firefighter, and also as a rescue swimmer and RWC operator, and member of the dive team (some of you have probably figured out who it is by now, please play along). This is my type of gig. Given the similar circumstances, we would have declined CG transport as well, for a myriad of reasons. As a matter of protocol, patients are sent to the nearest *hospital* ED for stabilization and triage. This is the same reason why burn patients aren't choppered straight to the burn center. So unless the CG arrives on-scene first, straight to the chamber isn't really an option. And it would really suck to be the guy who has an MI or stroke (symptoms can be similar) and gets dumped at the chamber instead of the cath-lab by an over-eager SAR crew.

What happened on the docks is anyone's guess. It'll all come out in the eventual lawsuit, where the first responder who followed all his protocols will get raked across the coals by a soul-less bottomfeeder in a suit and tie just so he can squeeze the government for some of your cash. And twelve people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty will take hours to evaluate the decisions made in minutes or seconds, based on the opinions of what some "expert" doc who has never set foot outside his ED thinks should have been done.

So please don't get your panties in a bunch quite yet. There may be a valid reason to, there may not. Given my experiences of just how quickly things can start circling the drain out in the field, I'll reserve judgement until I hear more.