Ky., Ohio cooperating in fight over prescription drug abuse

From Cincinnati.com

Accidental drug-overdose deaths are cutting a swath across southern Ohio and eastern Kentucky, as well as Northern Kentucky, destroying families in rural and suburban areas at higher rates in both states than in the urban centers like Cincinnati, Louisville and Lexington.

To counter abuse of highly addictive prescription narcotics such as hydrocodone (Vicodin), oxycodone (OxyContin and Percoset), alprazolam (Xanax) and diazepam (Valium) the governors of Kentucky and Ohio met this week in Cincinnati to develop a battle strategy.

Rural Emergency Services Seek $300,000 from Oregon Legislature

From the Lund Report:

A bill before the legislature would plug what rural emergency services personnel are calling a major gap in the training available to them.

House Bill 3580 would appropriate $300,000 from the state’s general fund for a second mobile training unit (MTU) for rural and frontier emergency services districts. “Frontier” districts are those where the population density is less than six people per square mile.

Wisconsin Communities Consider Regional Paramedic Service

From JEMS:

Five communities in Waukesha and Washington counties are apparently exploring the possibility of establishing a regional paramedic emergency response service that might cover an estimated 150 square miles.

The communities are the town of Lisbon and the villages of Lannon, Richfield, Germantown and Menomonee Falls.

Therapeutic hypothermia used in marathon runner and Lady Gaga concert saves

From JEMS:

After tending to him in the road, medics quickly got Deitch out of the rain and into an ambulance, where a defibrillator was used. His pulse returned, but he was not conscious. He didn’t respond to any simple commands. It took less than five minutes to take him to the emergency department at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital. There a new protocol for treating heart attack patients was put in place. Deitch was put on ice.

From CNN:

Tugman ran to the lobby to get help. It took Jerry Jones, an EMT supervisor with Vanderbilt University’s LifeFlight Event Medicine program, one minute more to reach her.

“The patient was unconscious with no heartbeat,” Jones said.

Using a portable automated external defibrillator, Jones and other paramedics spent more than five minutes until they were finally able to get Thornton’s heart beating again.

She was then airlifted to Vanderbilt Medical Center’s emergency department, where doctors immediately used therapeutic hypothermia to cool Thornton’s body temperature to between 93 and 86 degrees — below the normal body temperature of 98.6 degrees.