Wait until somebody dies, then "fix the problem" and take credit for it, ignoring all those who have, in the past, pleaded with you to fix it. Then get rid of them so they can't tell that they tried. Ed Stein, elite liberal cartoonist with the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, Colorado, doesn't often get it right, but once in a while he "hits it right on the head." He does so in this case, using the collapse of the bridge in Minneapolis as a good example of how fast Congress (or any legislature) can act when they want to. I was personally involved in a good example years ago in Florida when I was a paramedic. Where we worked, they used a "zone system" where patients must be picked up by an ambulance from the zone they were in. We happened upon an emergency on the way back from a hospital that was a block outside our zone and offered to transport the patient, who was under cardiac arrest treatment. Remember, we were ONE BLOCK AWAY from the hospital. But NO! We were in somebody else's zone! So the cops waited around for another fifteen minutes while the zone ambulance, which was at the other end of their zone, got there. The patient died, and I went ballistic. I made such a fuss that the man in charge of emergency medical services in the county lost his job and best of all, a new rule was instituted that allowed the ranking EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) on the scene to order the transport in a "life and death" situation. A good move. But unfortunately too late for the patient whose death caused it all. However, that change may have saved many other lives and I'm proud of my part in it. (Rocky Mountain News, 8/15/07)
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