Cadets In Es Letter

Started by arajca, July 24, 2007, 09:30:22 PM

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JohnKachenmeister

Rocket P:

Well said.  I was waiting to calm down before I addressed that.  You took the words right out of my fingertips (and cleaned them up a little).

The policy letter gives guidance.  If I had under-18 cadets, I would feel free to use them on the mission in support of our own operations (Mission base staff, radio operators, etc.) but just not in the field.

I really don't see a problem here.
Another former CAP officer

BlackKnight

Paragraph 2 of Maj. Gen. Pineda's letter clearly gives everyone some wiggle room here (emphasis mine):

2. The Requesting Agency Sets the Scope of CAP's Response. Our customers tell us what
assistance they need. Our customers may have minimum age restrictions. CAP shall honor those
restrictions. That does not mean that CAP's adult officers should discourage use of our cadets
especially when discussing our capabilities with external customers.
We all know how capable
and mature our cadets are, and we should do whatever we reasonably can to show other agencies
what they can do as well. While our cadets represent the finest among our nation's youth, adult
officers must remain alert to ensure that unnecessary risks are avoided
. Cadets are our
organization's future.


The way I interpret this is that where there are ironclad contractual restrictions in our MOUs, we honor those.  (Obviously! Anyone who knowingly attempts an end-run on our MOUs should be suspended from ES duties.)  Where there are not contractual restrictions, the responsibility for how to use our personnel resources (including cadets) to best accomplish the mission is left up to the IC and the team leaders in the field.  And that's the right place for it.

The fastest way to get to where we want to be, e.g., maximum utilization of all properly trained CAP personnel, is to develop a national reputation for playing by the rules (no hot-dogging) and being the best at what we do.   This means any and all personal agendas must be tabled once the SAR request comes in. 

Phil Boylan, Maj, CAP
DCS, Rome Composite Sqdn - GA043
http://www.romecap.org/

Johnny Yuma

You guys didn't get my point.

Team makeup is based on IC/OPS approval and they have final say on who's on the team. Once they'e signed off on the sortie I'll determine who does what job on my teams as the GTL.

I'm going to put the proverbial round peg in the round hole. If that means I have cadets I feel are qualified to do a job they'll get tasked to do that.

I've known of cadets working ES whose experiences ranged from newbie Seniors to cadets who were EMT's, even Nurse Aides who worked with Hospice. I even know of a cadet whose parents owned a mortuary and was learning the family business OJT. It doesn't take a lawyer in Alabama to figure out who's guiding the paid help (fire/EMS/LE) into a crash site to who's helping the coroner if he asks for assistance.

"And Saint Attila raised the Holy Hand Grenade up on high saying, "Oh Lord, Bless us this Holy Hand Grenade, and with it smash our enemies to tiny bits. And the Lord did grin, and the people did feast upon the lambs, and stoats, and orangutans, and breakfast cereals, and lima bean-"

" Skip a bit, brother."

"And then the Lord spake, saying: "First, shalt thou take out the holy pin. Then shalt thou count to three. No more, no less. "Three" shall be the number of the counting, and the number of the counting shall be three. "Four" shalt thou not count, and neither count thou two, execpting that thou then goest on to three. Five is RIGHT OUT. Once the number three, being the third number be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade to-wards thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuffit. Amen."

Armaments Chapter One, verses nine through twenty-seven:

SJFedor

I'm sorry, I have to lighten up the mood here...
Quote from: Johnny Yuma on January 24, 2008, 07:45:06 PM
...even Nurse Aides who worked with Hospice...

Those are probably the cadets you want to keep FARTHEST away from the victims  ;D


Not only that, I now find no record of Pineda's ES ICL on the NHQ website. I see all the ICLs that our current CAP/CC renewed (good commander!) but that letter isn't one of them. So, wouldn't this now negate the whole purpose of the thread?

Steven Fedor, NREMT-P
Master Ambulance Driver
Former Capt, MP, MCPE, MO, MS, GTL, and various other 3-and-4 letter combinations
NESA MAS Instructor, 2008-2010 (#479)

RiverAux

This was not an interim change letter, so it wouldn't be there.  It was what I would call an "advisory" memo letting you know the commander's intent. 

notaNCO forever

I don't have any see any problems with a cadet being on a GT as long as the GTL is smart enough to only have mature cadets on the GT. I do think there should be a minimum age of 16 or 18. Hopefully the GT is EMT qualified but if not and it's a absolute emergency of a victims health and you have a cadet EMT a would rather forget a reg once and save a persons life instead of going "It's against regs will have to let him die.

Jolt

Quote from: NCO forever on January 27, 2008, 11:51:36 PM
I don't have any see any problems with a cadet being on a GT as long as the GTL is smart enough to only have mature cadets on the GT. I do think there should be a minimum age of 16 or 18. Hopefully the GT is EMT qualified but if not and it's a absolute emergency of a victims health and you have a cadet EMT a would rather forget a reg once and save a persons life instead of going "It's against regs will have to let him die.

In the event of an actual medical emergency on a mission, I'm relatively certain that our first aid certified GTL will let the cadet EMT-I, EMT-B, and MRT on our team take care of the patient.

NavLT

I have always had a problem with trying to sort capabilities based on any single standard. Age, Rank, etc.

I think the letter from the CC makes it clear that care and consideration should be taken in the employment of any CAP resource.

With the particular question of this string "Cadets in ES" I would say that a IC or GBD or GTL needs to carefully look at what they have and decide based on the Mission what resources to employ.

I am a 20 year member with all the bells and whistles in ES.  I am also a Paramedic and an IC outside of CAP.  I will take a proffesional CAP Cadet over a over enthused adult any day of the week but not all cadets are professional.

With reguards to the medical question.  I would fall back to the my state understanding...."The Highest trained individual is in-charge of medical care".  So if the Crash site has a living but injured passenger then the EMT-I cadet gets the job.  CPR aside dead is dead and unless they crashed within site of the road they are probably not recoverable but anything short of dead gets the best we have.

I would also point out that CAP is a First Aid Agency so the highest trained has the know how to make decisions but they should not have any ACLS toys with them or they go beyond CAP's Scope.

V/R
Lt J.

grp3eso

please look at capr 60-3 para 1-24(f) where is says CAP is NOT a medical organization (first aid and up)
in my view once a member starts first aid, they are automatically signed out of the mission and now working on the medical card they hold. i believe that the first aid requirements that are on the STQRs are for taking care of the team members if needed.

HGjunkie

••• retired
2d Lt USAF

N Harmon

Quote from: grp3eso on November 26, 2010, 07:17:10 PMin my view once a member starts first aid, they are automatically signed out of the mission

How does that work?  It seems rather hypocritical for us to decide someone is "signed out" of a mission simply because they come across someone in the course of their CAP duty who is bleeding and they render aid in the form of direct pressure on the wound while someone else calls 9-1-1. I mean, we reward that sort of behavior with our third-highest decoration. It would be bizarre for us to also punish it by dropping that person's FECA/FTCA coverage.
NATHAN A. HARMON, Capt, CAP
Monroe Composite Squadron

a2capt

I presume that wouldn't hold up in court either, due to the ambiguity of when the 'sign out' actually occurred in a timeline of events that depended on the status of that person and their actions.

So a ground team comes across someone bleeding in the roadway. Someone is now automatically signed out, and the rest of the team is now penalized since they are no longer a fully staffed, thus incomplete resource?

No, they fall back as a UDF team of three, someone might say.  .. Except UDF in the middle of BFE is kind of.. stretching it.

I hope that Group 3 isn't CAWG, because I'll have to be careful who I team up with incase that scenario happens.

lordmonar

Quote from: N Harmon on November 26, 2010, 09:57:31 PM
Quote from: grp3eso on November 26, 2010, 07:17:10 PMin my view once a member starts first aid, they are automatically signed out of the mission

How does that work?  It seems rather hypocritical for us to decide someone is "signed out" of a mission simply because they come across someone in the course of their CAP duty who is bleeding and they render aid in the form of direct pressure on the wound while someone else calls 9-1-1. I mean, we reward that sort of behavior with our third-highest decoration. It would be bizarre for us to also punish it by dropping that person's FECA/FTCA coverage.

Not to mention that First Aid IS for search targets and CAP members is in fact authorisesed.
The Group 3 ESO needs to read 60-1 again.
PATRICK M. HARRIS, SMSgt, CAP

HGjunkie

Group 3 for CAWG or FLWG?   ???
••• retired
2d Lt USAF

SarDragon

Or maybe some other wing with a Group 3.
Dave Bowles
Maj, CAP
AT1, USN Retired
50 Year Member
Mitchell Award (unnumbered)
C/WO, CAP, Ret

Eclipse

#35
Quote from: grp3eso on November 26, 2010, 07:17:10 PM
please look at capr 60-3 para 1-24(f) where is says CAP is NOT a medical organization (first aid and up)
in my view once a member starts first aid, they are automatically signed out of the mission and now working on the medical card they hold. i believe that the first aid requirements that are on the STQRs are for taking care of the team members if needed.

Yes, time for some review of the regs, and perhaps a consultation with your wing OPS staff.  CAP members are not prohibited from rendering aid within their level of training (and personal ORM).

CAP, Inc., is not, by mission, a medical service agency, therefore it does not provide training, certification, or any guarantee of medical response by its members.  There is a difference between that and not rendering aid.

Most LEA's are not considered medical responder agencies, either, but their members have at least advanced first aid training if not more.  However, if an untrained LEO hangs an IV and the patient dies of sepsis, that LEO is likely to be in some trouble, same as CAP.

CAP members with proper training can provide even advanced medical assistance, but their liability protection for anything beyond the community-level first aid that CAP requires would come from their personal certification, insurance, and affiliations.  CAP, Inc., will not stand behind you.

Yes, this is a rock and a hard place for members in "duty to respond" states.  So we advise members with that conflict not to participate in CAP duties that would put them in an ethical paradox.  If they choose to involve themselves, anyway, it is at their own risk.

This is why any commander or activity director with common sense tells members who show up to missions with backboards, oxygen, and IV bags to "stow them or go home" (if not just "go home), because clearly there is an expectation that they would be used "in an emergency", and that sets up a situation that could put CAP, Inc., at risk unnecessarily and without authorization.

Quote from: a2capt on November 26, 2010, 10:27:00 PM
No, they fall back as a UDF team of three, someone might say.  .. Except UDF in the middle of BFE is kind of.. stretching it.

Not all GTM's are rated as UDF.  Many are, but there is a difference between the two.

I don't agree with any assertion that members can get "auto-signed-out", or that when a team loses a member they just reconstitute as "other" and continue to do the same things.

That is a whole-scale skirting of the regs designed to protect us both legally and physically.  A team comes across an accident, they call 9-1-1, render aid within our guidelines and wait for EMS.

"That Others May Zoom"

a2capt

Quote from: Eclipse on November 27, 2010, 03:31:41 PMNot all GTM's are rated as UDF.  Many are, but there is a difference between the two.
I realize that, I didn't completely finish that out, but should have also had, "..under the presumption that the members in the field all earned UDF along that road to GTM/L.


...and that the IC disbanded the team and re-tasked them as UDF to make things all proper.


Eclipse

^ Which I think you basically agree is a bad idea.

Any tasking which originally required a GT, doesn't magically become a UDF-task because you don't have a full GT, and any tasking
that is UDF-worthy, should not have had a full GT to start with,m since that is a waste of resources.

You would also need new 106's, ORM (which is likely to be higher now), and telling people all over ICS that the universe has changed.

The fact that we probably do this all the time doesn't make it a good idea.

There's also the issue of the "missing man" - this random guy who is all by himself doing field surgery because he "signed out". The limited civil reach of CAP authority not withstanding, if you value your membership, you don't leave a mission until authorized to do so.

"That Others May Zoom"

RADIOMAN015

Quote from: Eclipse on November 27, 2010, 07:37:01 PM

There's also the issue of the "missing man" - this random guy who is all by himself doing field surgery because he "signed out". The limited civil reach of CAP authority not withstanding, if you value your membership, you don't leave a mission until authorized to do so.

Hmm, as the example above, I really don't see this as happening; HOWEVER, surely a member who has been up all day long working being called in for a mission may find they are just too tired to safely go on after lets say midnight or 0100 hrs local and will advise the IC prior to that time that they will have to leave the mission.  I know now in our wing most of the ELT signals (unless there's a high probability that it is an actual emergency, based upon geographic location)  are no longer chased down after midnight.  If the signal is still present the next day, at first light another team will be sent out.
RM 

Eclipse

^^ What does this have to do with cadets in ES, or the more recent angle of a member signing out and providing medical care?

"That Others May Zoom"