To the Editor:
On March 26, the chief medical officer of Cape Regional Medical Center (CRMC) released alarming statistics at Cape May’s Council meeting concerning the safety of our beaches. To improve beach safety, we should station more emergency medical technicians (EMTs) at various beaches while also improving paramedic response times.
An abundance of additional medical care could be expeditiously brought to the front lines of all beaches by both basic and advanced providers.
Basic life support (BLS), administered by EMTs, could minimize musculoskeletal injuries by utilizing proper splinting techniques. Advanced Life Support (ALS), provided by paramedics, could likewise mitigate poor outcomes of injuries while also providing fast pain management.
Paramedics equipped with pain medicine can alleviate discomfort to reduce the anxiety of the patient and family members. Further, failing to provide this pain relief with proper pharmaceuticals, i.e., analgesics, can negatively affect certain patients.
The elderly, children, and those with a lower pain tolerance suffer greatly as painful symptoms persist. Unmanageable pain can result in exhaustion, leading to the deterioration of a patient’s condition.
Paramedics can also offer other helpful ways of calming the situation given their wide range of skills and standing orders from a medical physician.
While lifeguards may be limited to cover the injuries of patients with boogie boards to shield the family members from seeing the wounds, EMTs and paramedics may play a more active role in providing symptom relief. Having both EMTs and paramedics more readily available in a medical emergency could mean the difference between life and death.
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