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Rule #1: If you subsidize a thing, people will use more of it.
Rule #2: When the cost of the subsidy inevitably becomes prohibitive, ration it. So that, you know, the people you initially wanted to use the service, can’t use the service as often as you promised them.
Rule #3: If rationing doesn’t cut costs, then slash payments to the people providing the services.
This is where we’re headed with our health care, folks.
Plastic Easter eggs packed with binary explosives, that’s how.
Step 1: Gather both parents, and chaperone daughter’s Easter party at school.
Yes, that is a camouflage Easter egg. You know you want one.
Step 2. Assist daughter with consuming all chocolate found in said Easter eggs. Make comments to ex-wife that they may as well plaster the chocolate directly on her ass. Dodge punch from ex-wife.
Step 3. Pack empty plastic Easter eggs with binary explosives, and find someplace to shoot.
Step 4: Convert money into smoke and noise. Giggle fiendishly with every Kaboom!
Takes a man confident in his own masculinity to wear pink earmuffs.
Brass in the air!
Back into battery, brass in midair.
The latest incidence of EMTs stepping on their talleywhackers comes from Little Rock, where MEMS paramedics mistakenly pronounced a woman dead, not just once, but twice:
“We had a unit respond initially and assess the patient, leave, another unit was called in,” says MEMS Executive Director Jon Swanson.
Both paramedics said the woman was dead, but when a detective and a deputy coroner arrived, they found otherwise. That’s when another paramedic showed up to get the woman to a hospital.
Whenever a story like this hits the news, the general public, aghast, asks how such a thing can happen.
And their brother EMTs, who should know better, start talking out their ass rushing to judgment without all of the facts. In my 16 years of EMS, two lessons have been driven home many, many times:
Normally, it’s pretty obvious to a trained medical provider when a patient has shuffled off the old mortal coil. You know, eating their salads from the roots up. Admissions to the Eternal Care Unit. Assuming room temperature. Or as Miracle Max put it:
“There’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there’s usually only one thing you can do – go through his clothes and look for loose change.”
And most times when someone gets sent to the morgue by the EMTs a bit prematurely, the mistake can be traced to complacency and poor assessment.
Most times, that is.
Just to demonstrate how easily such a mistake can happen, let me tell you a little story, which may or may be fictional, which may or may not have occurred at PGHNSTRACH, which may or may not have involved a certain rakishly handsome paramedic/author/columnist/smartass.
Paramedics were called to a local nursing home for a patient with lethargy and fever. The senior medic rightfully suspected sepsis, did a quick but thorough assessment, and determined that the patient was FTD*. He quickly loaded the patient into the ambulance and initiated a rapid diesel infusion to the local hospital, PGHNSTRACH.
The medic managed to establish an IV along the way, and started a judicious fluid bolus to prop up his patient’s dangerously low blood pressure, with a dopamine drip the next item on the menu. Alas, before he could intervene further, his patient Went Into The Light.
He rolled in the door doing chest compressions, and effectively ventilating the patient through a laryngeal mask airway. He’d not even had time to administer any resuscitation medications. He gave report to the rakishly handsome paramedic/author/columnist/smartass, and moved the patient over to the ER bed, where the resuscitation continued unabated.
The rakishly handsome paramedic/author/columnist/smartass ordered his nurse co-worker to establish a second IV, put the security guard to doing chest compressions, and checked the patient’s rhythm.
Slow, wide complex PEA at a rate of 30.
“Well then,” thinks the ER paramedic aloud, “some epinephrine and atropine might be in order.” While the nurse is administering the medications, the rakishly handsome medic – hereinafter referred to as “guy who might be AD” because typing all that shit is tiresome – initiates transcutaneous pacing at 70 bpm, surmising that hey, the pads were already in place, and pacing couldn’t hurt.
He then removed the LMA, intubated the patient, and confirmed the tube placement via auscultation, clinical assessment, and colorimetric CO2 monitoring. Ordered a chest x-ray, too, on the doctor’s behalf.
Another round of drugs was given, CPR compressors were swapped out, and the pacer was discontinued briefly to check the underlying rhythm, which had degraded to asystole – flat line.
The guy who might be AD started digging through the nursing home chart for the patient’s medication use and medical history, searching for clues as to what caused the arrest.
Well, other than suffering from an advanced case of TMB**, that is.
About then, the ER doctor moseyed into the room, took the chart from the guy who might be AD, and concluded pretty much what he had: train wreck. Waving at the guy who might be AD to continue running the resuscitation, she announced, “How many rounds of drugs has he had? Two? Okay, we’re gonna run this for another round of drugs, and then I’m calling it. This is futile, and this poor man hasn’t had a decent quality of life in years.”
So the guy who might be AD ordered another round of drugs without change in the patient’s status, checked to see that nearly half a liter of fluid had been administered, and ordered the pacer turned off.
The rhythm was asystole. The guy who might be AD confirmed it by checking a carotid pulse, and even listened to the guy’s heart sounds. Just to be sure, because his ears suck, he had his nurse co-worker listen, and to be doubly sure, they both listened for heart tones with a hand-held Doppler.
There were none.
The ER doctor nodded matter-of-factly, and said, “That’s it. Time of death 1340 hours. Good job, everybody.”
An unbroken monitor strip was printed, confirming asystole in Leads I, II and III. The crash cart and its monitor was moved back to the hallway, and the guy who might be AD busied himself tidying up the body for viewing by the family, should they arrive before the funeral home guys. He left the endotracheal tube and IV lines in place, and carefully cleaned up all the bodily fluids and excretions that inevitably leak when a person dies. During this time, the patient was still attached to the ER telemetry monitor, and the rhythm displayed there was a long, unbroken line of asystole.
The guy who might be AD looked for a sheet with which to cover the body, but finding none, wandered down to the linen cart on the inpatient wing of the hospital to fetch some linens. He bullshitted with the charge nurse for a bit, hit the vending machines for a snack, and inquired of the nice hairnetted ladies in the cafeteria what was being served for supper.
He then sauntered back to the ER, covered the body with a sheet, and as a final step, removed the telemetry monitor leads and turned off the screen. The rhythm was still asystole, and in case you’re wondering, the telemetry monitor only displays Lead II, and the cables do not detach without pulling a module out of the machine. There is no question that the rhythm displayed was the patient’s true rhythm.
The medic who might be AD wandered back into the nurse’s station, told his nurse co worker what was for supper, and at her request, called the cafeteria to order two supper trays. The nurse would have done it herself, but she was on the phone with the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency – useless in this case, but still a required call.
He walked back into the resuscitation room, looking for the spare clean laryngoscope blades, when he noticed something curious. The colorimetric CO2 detector, still attached to the endotracheal tube, had changed from a dull tan to a bright, vivid yellow.
“Hmm, that’s weird,” he thought. “Takes a goodly amount of exhaled CO2 to make for such a pronounced color change… wait a minute. Exhaled CO2???”
He flipped back the sheet, intending to check a carotid pulse, only to discover that it was unnecessary. With the man’s emaciated frame, he could see the carotid artery throbbing. He was breathing too.
Time of resurrection, 1352 hours.
The medic who might be AD walked back into the nursing station, where his co-worker was still on the phone with LOPA, and whispered softly in her ear, “Ixnay on the eth-day. He’s baaaaack!”
Dumfounded, she dropped the phone, followed him into the room, and discovered that yes, their patient indeed alive, and looking livelier by the minute. He had a blood pressure of 78/40, a respiratory rate of 10, and a sinus tachycardia rocking along at 128 beats a minute.
Or at least, he might have had, if this was a true story, which I’m not admitting it is.
In the end, the old man died for real later that night, and stayed that way right on through burial. And the medic who might be AD learned a very powerful lesson:
Don’t judge if you weren’t there. Even good medics make mistakes, and one mistake does not make a dangerous medic. And even then, weird shit happens sometimes.
* Fixin’ To Die
** Too Many Birthdays
There are few things more lethal than a head shot, right?
I mean, put a couple of sufficiently large caliber rounds deep into the cranial vault, and most folks figure that would settle a bad guy’s hash quite nicely, right?
And indeed it may, given enough time. But I am no longer surpised to see a patient with one or more lead and copper projectiles of 147 grains or so lodged deeeeeep within his central nervous system, that still had plenty of fight left in him.
Like our patient from a few nights ago, for example, who was still awake and alert when we arrived, and actually refusing to go to the hospital. He even had enough moxie to walk to the stretcher with a little assistance.
And that’s with two .38 Special rounds in his melon, folks.
Don’t ever let anyone tell you that any pistol round is instantly fatal, even when you hit something vital.
Available on te… http://bit.ly/bXCebs #
AD: “Katy, come over here and give your old man a kiss. I didn’t get my good morning kiss, after all!”
KatyBeth: “Uh uh. You got one first thing this morning.”
AD: “Doesn’t matter. I am entitled to unlimited smoocharooneys, on demand. It’s in the Daddy Contract.”
KB: “Is not. That’s not even in the Constitution!”
Neither is the right to health care, but I didn’t tell her that. I might not have gotten my kiss!
From the man with the hardest to pronounce handle in the blogosphere, comes this:
Available on tee shirts and bumper stickers here.
Peter Canning at Streetwatch: Notes of a Paramedic has been doing a regular series of the most essential meds in his drug box.
Not unusually, well over half of the drugs he carries never get used. That happens with quite a bit of the equipment we carry on our rigs. Reflective triangles, traction splints, bedpans, blood tubing… most of it gathers dust on the shelf.
But there are a couple of essential pieces of equipment that no EMT should ever be without, items so essential that many people consider them part of their wardrobe:
A wristwatch, and a pen.
And here is your fair notice: If you are an EMT student, and you show up for a shift on my truck and do not have a wristwatch with a second hand, and some sort of writing implement, I will summarily send your ass home to fetch them.
Just like I did this morning, in fact.
Way to start the morning, rookie. Your preceptor is monumentally unimpressed.
What’s in a name?
Everything, apparently.
Over at the JEMS Magazine Facebook page, they apparently link to my posts fairly frequently. And whenever they do, the indignant remarks about the title of my blog usually far outnumber the reasoned comments about the content therein.
Every post, without fail, there’s an avalanche of “ZOMG! I went to school for [insert length of curriculum here] to learn how to do questionably beneficial stuff without really knowing why, and I didn’t give up a rewarding career in the fast food service industry just to be called an AMBULANCE DRIVER! You suck, JEMS!”
Yeah, and Dr. Evil didn’t go to evil medical school for 12 years just to be called Mister Evil, either.
Rarely do I see any of these comments here, so my guess is that the commenters never read any further than the title of the blog. In fact, they usually direct their righteous indignation toward JEMS and not me, thus confirming their precarious hold on the lower rungs of the reading comprehension ladder.
Evidently, there’s a good reason most publishers write their EMT textbooks at the 8-10th grade reading levels. To such an audience, a lengthy discourse in the use of satire in my blog title is an exercise in futility.
Likewise, explaining to people why a paramedic blogs about guns, politics, and fatherhood just demonstrates that some people can’t grasp that the title of my blog is “A Day In the Life of an Ambulance Driver.”
Not all of my days involve thwarting natural selection on my ambulance. Sometimes, those days involve shooting. Or musing about politics. Or camping with my kid. Or hanging out with my tribe at blogger shoots and EMS conferences. Or shooting off my mouth about whatever the hell I please, when it comes right down to it.
In the first couple of years of this blog, I got quite a few private e-mails questioning my choice of blog titles. Invariably, they’d start by saying how much they liked what I had written, how entertaining or inspirational or educational they found my blog, but…
… BUT.
“AD, you’re an experienced paramedic,” they’d chide. “Surely you understand our struggle to be recognized as a true healthcare profession! How can you, of all people, call yourself an ambulance driver? It’s demeaning and disrespectful!”
To those people, my response is usually, “Splintered wood and mineral fragments may rupture my skeletal structure, but nomenclature does not impair me.”
Because, you know, we also have to use highfalutin’ language in order to be taken seriously.
Once upon a time, I was one of those medics who used to bristle at being called an “ambulance driver.” With the nurses, I’d usually respond with “ass wiper.” If it was a respiratory therapist, I’d call them “snot jockey.” Cops were “donut receptacles.” Non-EMS firefighters were “hose monkeys.”
If it was a doc, I’d ask what it was like to be practicing medicine when penicillin was discovered.
“Ambulance driver!” I’d chortle with exaggerated mirth. “Good one, Doc! So tell me, what was Galen really like in medical school?”
And all those snappy comebacks only succeeded in making me look like an insecure ass.
I no longer correct people when they call me an ambulance driver, for the same reason I don’t sign my name Kelly Grayson, AAS, NREMT-P, CCEMT-P, ACLS RF, PALS RF, BLS TCF, EMS I/C, Farmedic I, NREMT QA, BEMS QIM, AMLS I, GEMS I, PEPP I, PHTLS I, NRP, HMFIC, BMOC, AEIOU and sometimes Y, recipient of Mrs. Sanders’ 3rd grade gold star award for an especially spiffy crayon drawing of a duck, author, columnist, raconteur, studmuffin:
Because to laypeople, all of those things are meaningless designations, and to the people whose opinions matter, it only makes me look like an officious ass with the occupational equivalent of Little Man’s Syndrome.
If you’re an EMT, be you a sparky, inexperienced rookie or a grizzled veteran, who gets all butt hurt about being called an ambulance driver, consider this:
Respect can never be demanded, only earned.
90% of the patients who call you an ammalance drivah do so for one reason and one reason only – because you do indeed drive the big horizontal taxi. If they’re the type to call you for a hangnail in the wee hours of the morning, or fake abdominal pain to get a free pregnancy test at the ER, they’re not interested in your capabilities.
They want a ride, period. You’re it.
The other 10% of your patients are pretty easy to spot, because they usually preface their chief complaint with some variation of “I feel so silly for calling y’all, but I just didn’t know what else to do.”
Those people may well represent a teachable moment, an opportunity to teach the public about our capabilities. And when that moment arises, their education would be better served by couching your words in gentle humility, and letting your actions demonstrate your skills and professionalism.
Offer them a blanket if they’re cold. Take a few extra seconds to fetch a pillow. Treat their MI with calm competence. Gently coach them through their anxiety attack. Administer what you can to relieve their pain. Sit beside them and hold their hand if they’re scared. Be solicitous to their worried loved ones.
Rather than shout, “You must respect mah authoritah!” like Eric Cartman, instead strive to be the island of calm in the sea of turmoil. People respect that, and will naturally look to you for leadership.
In short, be a professional caregiver, with emphasis on the care.
Believe me, they’ll come to see you as far more than just an ambulance driver.
And if you demonstrate with your medical care that you are indeed a professional worthy of respect, the other medical professionals will treat you that way, regardless of the patch on your shoulder or the number of initials after your name.
If people who should know better still call you an ambulance driver, it is because they choose to remain ignorant or disdainful. Arguing with such assholes only gives them the power to make you look like an asshole, too.
And really, why should the opinion of someone like that matter to you anyway?
IM conversation with a friend:
AD: “Guess where I’m sitting right now.”
Friend: “I dunno, where?”
AD: “The bathroom. I’m sitting here on the crapper, with my netbook balanced on my knees.”
Friend: “Ack! I did not need to know that! Apparently, you missed some of those lessons I’m sure your Mama tried to teach you.”
AD: “You’re talking to the man whose mother used to wake him up fifteen minutes early for school, just to make him go downstairs and warm up the cold toilet seat for her.”
Friend: “Oh. Well. That explains quite a lot about you, actually.”
What? Why are you looking at me that way? Next you’ll be telling me your mother didn’t make you do such things when you were a kid…
Good discussion there on EMS conferences, and how to go about becoming a conference presenter.
If you’re an EMT or EMS educator, there’s plenty of good stuff to be heard on EMS podcasts like Greg Friese’s EMS Educast, or Chris Montera’s EMS Garage, or Jamie Davis at MedicCast, or the Seat at The Table series over at Chronicles of EMS.
You’ll find the most current EMS news and issues of the day, discussed by some pretty talented thinkers, long before they show up in a trade magazine or or conference presentation.
Good stuff. Y’all should check them out, and lend your voices to the discussion.
In re-reading my last post, it occurs to me that I may have come off as condescending to my EMS brethren who happen to practice their profession within the fire department.
That was not my intention.
I’ve never made a secret of the fact that I am dubious of the dual role, firefighter/EMT delivery model, and I still hold the belief that many of our larger fire departments view EMS as nothing more than a means to justify firefighter jobs, and that many firefighters view EMS as a secondary job function, despite the fact that the call volume for most dual role departments skews 80/20 EMS calls versus fire suppression.
I also question the ability of your average EMT or firefighter to adequately serve two masters – fire suppression and medical care – and still do justice to both.
Still, that ignores the fact that I know a number of exceptional people who do manage to juggle both roles successfully, and call many of them friends.
The cause to re-evaluate the post came from commenter topv7051, although the impetus for this apology did not. In his comment, topv7051 states:
There are plenty of folks in your private/third service/EMS only agencies that have bad attitudes and poor performance, just like every other job. I could sit here and recount a hundred times that my crew and I have had to deal with incompetent private EMTs who seemed to disappear anytime a patient needed to be carried, but that doesn’t mean that you would do the same. Maybe you should stick to blogging about guns, Sumdood, and foreign made trucks. Whining about firefighters just demonstrates your jealousy and ignorance.
In my response to topv7051, I called him a troll, primarily because he never comments unless he has something ugly to say, like suggesting the fall of America is due to my choice of truck.
But in this case, he’s right, even though he stated his case like a jerk. But hey, we’re all jerks now and then, and sometimes when stating my case, I come off like a jerk.
So here you go, topv7051, my public apology for calling you a troll. I don’t much like your commenting style, and we’ll probably never agree on a damned thing, but your comment didn’t stoop to trollery, and you had a valid point.
Thanks for pointing that out.
Julette Saussy, medical director for New Orleans Health Department EMS, the primary 911 EMS provider for Orleans Parish, is voicing her opposition to a bill before the Louisiana Legislature:
Oh, HELL no.
I’m having a hard time figuring out how to say “bad idea” forcefully enough without resorting to profanity, but it’s hard when I read stuff like this.
Let me put this as succinctly as I can:
When you’re a firefighter/medic, working in a dual role agency, your primary job is providing medical care, Sparky. You’re an EMT 80% of the time, and a firefighter only 20% of the time, despite how much you wish it were otherwise. And even if you don’t want to act like providing emercency medical care is your primary responsibility, that doesn’t change the fact that when you’re on a scene, you’re an EMT just like those boys in Acadian green, or the navy blue of NOHD and East Baton Rouge EMS.
That means you’re subject to the same regulations, disciplinary processes, and medical oversight just like any other EMT who didn’t happen to roll up the scene in a vehicle with as many lug nuts as yours – and that includes your fellow lug nuts wearing turnout gear.
You’re no better than any other EMT, and in quite a few instances, you’re a lot worse. Grow up and learn to play by the rules like everyone else.
Or drop your EMT certs and go back to dragging hose, and leave the emergency medical care to the professionals.
If you live in Louisiana, please call your state legislator and voice your opposition to this bill, and that goes double if you’re an EMT.
If you happen to be a Louisiana firefighter/medic who thinks this bill is a good idea, carefully reconsider your position. Do you really think that firefighter EMTs should be held to a lesser standard than those who don’t fight fires?
… stays at the conference.
Unless, of course, it’s too funny not to share.
Just got back from a local steakhouse with a few members of the conference committee and Steve Murphy. Swapped a few war stories, drank a few good beers and had a really good bison steak.
When we got back to the hotel, the conference chairperson buttonholed us in the exhibit hall to remind us of this evening’s planned entertainment, a Texas Hold ‘Em tournament and a Wii bowling tournament.
Chairperson: “Oooh, you guys are back! Did you enjoy dinner?”
Murph and AD: “It was great, thanks.”
Chairperson: “Now don’t forget, we still have activities going on tonight, so make sure you go Poker ‘n the Wii!”
AD: “Uummmm, sure. Can we both get in on that, or do we have to take turns?”
Chairperson (turning beet red): OhmyGod, I did not mean that the way it sounded!”
AD: “Too late, sister. Consider that one blogged.”
… they even held their lighters aloft and swayed rhythmically.
Or at least, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Seriously though, really nice reception to my talks from the Nebraska Instructor Society. Tomorrow is the Nebraska EMS Association spring conference, where I’ll be talking out of my ass lecturing for three more days.
Wonderful people up here in flyover country, even if they do talk kinda funny.
… bound for lovely Columbus, Nebraska to speak at their spring EMS conference.
The TSA security theatre was entertaining as usual, and this time, they used lubricant with the body cavity search!
Regular blogging to resume shortly from Cornhusker country…
I’ve had a friend visiting from out-of-town for the past few days, down here researching the possibility of life as a snowbird. Considering that temperatures at home this time of year routinely hover near zero, I can’t say that I blame her.
I took her to the range the other day, and she tried out KatyBeth’s Smith&Wesson M&P15 .22.
Valerie DeFrance shoots an evil black rifle!
KatyBeth and I took her to Sunrise Catfish Farm, an entirely new experience for her. Apparently, back in Alaska, she just wades out into the crick behind her house and scoops 40 lb salmon up onto the bank with her bare hands. This whole “rod and reel” thing was a bit foreign to her.
Out of respect for the nice Mennonite family that runs the catfish farm, we didn’t use my preferred fishing technique, ala Hub and Garth McCann. We did catch a fairly nice stringer of catfish, though.
But the signature moment of the weekend came on Friday, when I went to the DMV to turn in the tags for the now-deceased Frankenhoopty. Valerie opted to wait outside while I went in, took a number, and settled in a chair to wait my turn.
I’d been waiting perhaps fifteen minutes when a concerned patron walked in and said, “There’s a woman out there just lying spread-eagled in the grass!”
Now normally, this would be my call to action, but something about the warm spring day told me to hold off. “What did she look like?” I asked. “Long brown hair in a ponytail, pink shirt, green cargo pants?”
“Yeah, that’s her,” the concerned motorist nodded. “Maybe somebody should go check on her!”
“‘Y’all don’t mind her,” I chuckled, “she’s from Alaska. She’s just not used to decent weather, that’s all.”
I had been looking for a compact carry gun for some time, and at Blogorado had pretty much fallen in love with FarmDad’s Kahr P9. But, after one 300 pound buck and the resultant repairs to Frankenhoopty, the Kahr became a bit too rich for my blood.
Flash forward a month, and the receipt of an Academy gift card from a collection of people who never know what to get me for Christmas, and I brought home a new Taurus 709, otherwise known as the Taurus SLIM.
And a slim little pistol it is, too, barely an inch thick, with streamlined and contoured edges. I carry it in a Don Hume model 715M size 30C IWB holster designed for the Sig P239, and the rig practically disappears under a shirt.
Specs for the Slim:
Model: 709B
Caliber: 9mm
Capacity: 7+1 (with a promised 9 round magazine supposedly on the way)
Construction: Polymer frame, checkered polymer grips
Finish: Blued
Front sight: Fixed
Rear sight: Fully adjustable for elevation and windage.
Weight: 19 oz
Length: 6″
Barrel length: 3″
Action: SA/DA
MSRP: $459
As usual, you can find them new for significantly less than MSRP. I picked mine up at Academy for $359.
It’s a well-balanced gun, and points well. I have fairly large hands, and one of my issues with compact semiautos is that I am forced to adopt a grip that is somewhat awkward for me. The Taurus 709 is no exception, but despite having no place to put my pinkie finger, I had no problems shooting the 709 accurately. Hopefully, a 9-round magazine with grip extension will make for a more comfortable grip without sacrificing a great deal of concealability.
Sights are of the 3-dot configuration, and unfortunately, made of plastic. In their favor, they are well contoured, with no sharp edges, and are fully adjustable for windage and elevation.
That’s a good thing, because the Slim shot low and left out of the box. Normally, I’d blame such a grouping on the loose nut behind the trigger, but it seemed that everyone who shot the Slim had the same general grouping, while I had no problems shooting my other pistols accurately.
On an amusing side note, while my guest and I were shooting the Slim, one guy at the range buttonholed us and offered his entirely unsolicited opinion that the Taurus Millenium Pro 9mm he had bought for his wife was an unmitigated piece of shit because it shot waaaay left.
I replied that I’d had no such issues with my Millenium PT140, and then proceeded to chew out the bullseye at 10 yards with both his new pistol and my slightly older PT140.
It’s a poor craftsman that blames his tools, folks.
The Taurus trigger does take some getting used to, however. The trigger on the Slim appears to be a hybrid of the Glock safe action trigger, working the Taurus SA/DA action. I wouldn’t call the SA trigger pull crisp, but neither does it approach the suckitude of a Glock trigger, and that particular piece of engineering hasn’t appreciably harmed my accuracy. With the Taurus SA/DA action, the first pull of the trigger is single action, albeit with a takeup most appropriately measured in furlongs, but if for some reason the weapon fails to fire, the trigger resets to DA mode.
Not sure of the utility of that feature, though. If the gun doesn’t consistently go “BANG!” when I pull the trigger, I’m not thinking, “Gee, what a relief that I can pull the trigger again before I go through my failure drill!”
More likely, after making sure it isn’t the ammo, I’m thinking, “Ditch this unreliable piece of shit before it gets me killed.”
Recoil is easily manageable, and accuracy is as good as you could hope for in a compact carry pistol with a 3 inch barrel:
As you can see, I’m still a little left, and I threw one flier in there. Still, it’s a very shootable pistol, easily concealed and well worth the price. Round count is currently around 500, and thus far it has run without a hitch.
For a $359 concealed carry piece, the Taurus Slim is hard to beat.
For that one call, that’s why.
That one call that makes it worth being paid chump change, makes it worth being disrespected by other medical professionals.
That one call that makes wading through the piss and shit and vomit seem like a fair bargain, even if the person whose hurts you mended will never know your name.
And sometimes, you don’t even know it was that one call at the time you ran it.
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