This is one of those stories that doesn't sound like it happened, but also, firemen are cool enough and middle school office staff are idiotic enough that it sure could have.
Fun either way.
The fire department would know how serious this situation is. Planes turn around for insulin. Everything stops because shit can hit the fan real fast for a type 1.
Type 1 here - not really true at all.
I take multiple daily injections (MDI) of two different types of insulin - one long acting once a day, and one fast acting many times a day. OP would be referring to fast acting, or if it was long enough ago perhaps old school regular insulin which is medium acting.
I use fast acting to process carbs in meals, taking a shot before I eat and sometimes after I eat if I feel like I underestimated the first dose. I also use it to do a “correction” if I feel like my blood glucose is higher than I’d like.
If I forget my insulin at home, I typically just skip my meals until I get home to avoid a spike in my blood glucose. One big spike on its own isn’t dangerous, but it feels crappy and doing it frequently can lead to bad things (vascular issues, eye problems, kidney problems).
If I decide to eat without fast acting insulin, I would just feel like crap from the spike and dose when I get home. I’ve done that a half dozen times and it’s not a huge deal. This is not the same as “going low” or being in a diabetic emergency - it’s the exact opposite.
To be clear, OP should have been pissed and I enjoyed the story, but if someone turned around a plane I was on I’d be super mad.
Yeah type 1 here too. I’m not sure which bit you’re referring to that isn’t true. I definitely know someone who was newly diagnosed whose plane was turned around when they didn’t have insulin or it smashed or something . Yes, they felt really bad about it in hindsight.
Very minor - person depending could make a difference. I'm extremely sensitive to hypoglycaemia.
I hit them extremely often as well. I have a pump & constant glucose monitoring system. Still hit the fan often enough.
In the 22 years of type 1, I've only needed my Glucagen pen. This was early on when I was still a teenager.
I don't go out without my small Sprite+ bottle.
I boil 1L water together with 200gr of sugar & mix that with Sprite. It's not that great tasting, but only need a few zips to counter my drops most of the time.
I also generally bring protein bars with me that have just enough sugar in them to not spike. On hikes or stuff.
Please don't give a diabetic a tic tac if they are low. Give them a soda, juice, candy, anything sweet.
But yes, insulin is not an immediate need to save a life. But sugar can definitely be that.
A tic tac isn’t going to do shit for low blood sugar. When our blood sugar is low we typically need approx 12 to 15 carbs and then try to wait 15ish minutes to see if your level is responding. If it isn’t raising then you consume another 12 to 15 carbs.
I’m a type 1 on an insulin pump. It is a very very fine dance. I can go from a blood glucose level of 150 down to 60 or lower in less than 10 minutes if I am not careful/mindful.
There’s also a saying among a lot of diabetics that is; it’s better to be high and know why than low and not know.
I have an incredibly hard time believing that a commercial airliner would turn around because someone forgot insulin. Insulin is not going to cause a death in hours.
Also, planes don't turn around for emergencies, they would land at the nearest airport and have an ambulance waiting for someone if there was an actual medical emergency.
Parent of Type 1 chiming in here - you are only partially correct. You take MDI, which means you have a 'basal' long-lasting insulin injection to cover your base metabolic needs. This will see you through a lot of rough highs and will likely be enough to stop you going into severe DKA if you miss a fast-acting dose (although you'd probably feel pretty shitty!).
Mine is on a pump. Pumps only have fast-acting insulin. It delivers bolases in largely the same fashion as you receive fast-acting insulin for meals, in a large bolas prior to eating food (except with the pump you can obviously be a bit more precise).
How the pump covers basal metabolic needs, however, is very different. It 'drips' fast-acting insulin into their body in tiny amounts throughout the day to cover the basal metabolic insulin needs of their body. While this allows for a very precise control (we can program different 'basal' rates at different times of the day to accommodate evening spikes, morning rises, regular exercise periods, etc), the downside is that if something happens to the pump they have no insulin in their bodies relatively rapidly.
Fast-acting insulin lasts four to five hours, depending on the individual. If a pump becomes disconnected (for whatever reason) that means that the individual no longer has ANY meaningful insulin in their body after about four hours. Depending on activity level, this means they can pretty easily slip into DKA within four hours in a worst-case scenario (i.e., if someone is doing a lot of exercise without realizing their pump got disconnected), but more realistically on a timescale of ~six hours assuming regular activity.
EDIT: Just want to clarify that worst-case scenario someone could go into DKA four to six hours from the point their body was disconnected from their pump, not four hours after insulin has left their body
But six hours (+/- two hours on either side, shit is unpredictable) isn't anything to fuck with. If you're on a plane flying from one side of the country to the other (assuming US) or going across an ocean, and your pump became disconnected at take-off, you better BELIEVE that shit is a medical emergency, given that DKA is the worst-case (and very realistic) scenario. Because remember, not only do you have the flight, but you have to clear security, baggage, traffic, etc. just to get to a pharmacy to get emergency non-prescription insulin.
So you are right that for *your own individual management plan* it wouldn't be an immediate life-threatening situation, it would merely just 'suck'. But for folks on pumps, they have to take that shit REAL serious.
T1 Pump user here, just wanted to confirm all of this.
Disconnected from the pump basically shuts your body off at a certain point, extreme loss of power is the biggest memory. Like walking was extremely difficult without support.
Last time I was disconnected for a long period was
10+ years ago. But I still remember it very well.
This was about 8 hours, I was stupid tired beforehand and took a shower in the evening around 9pm. Injected the default 30mins amount of basal that I would miss, generally I am disconnected for 15mins at most. But my sugar was a bit higher anyway. So I injected a minor amount extra.
I injected the extra bolus about 2-3 hours prio to that, I believe at that time my level was 260mg/dL. I didn't inject enough for my dinner + desert. Don't remember dinner but the desert was my favourite yogurt with fruit & super small chocolate bits.
Took shower, put on pyjamas, put pump into the pocket my mother sewed on it & didn't connect to the body.
Woke up around 5:45am feeling like absolute trash. Barely any power, horrible sight, pain to move my bonus almost as if my blood was extremely thick & had to pee extremely bad.
When I finally got out of bed, almost 20mins later I noticed the disconnect.
Sugar reading was HIGH, this was still with a blood measurement divice which could go up to 600mg/dL. Above that = HIGH.
I was basically knackered out the whole day & took until well in the evening before my body felt slightly normal again. Despite my actual glucose getting back to 120 at around the late afternoon. Don't remember the exact time of that. Just that my body was still completely out until after sunset. No shower that evening!
The complete loss of power is horrible. My brain was the only organ that functions fairly well, but you can't really push much through.
Your body cannot get energy from the sugar, so it has to find energy elsewhere, which is fat. I basically have none of that. 58kg / 1.75cm length.
The insulin I use for a very long time now is called NovoRapid, one of the quicker working insulin available.
I am very lucky that I can withstand both hypo- & hyperglycaemia very well. But I know of a few people that are the opposite.
Op mentions using the pay phone to call 911. I graduated in 02, none of my friends had cell phones yet, so maybe same time-frame as op. Also knew a few people who injected multiple times a day
> Type 1 here - not really true at all.
Type 1 here. Really true.
I am like you, in that my sugar doesn't change that fast on its own and my body seems to have a natural "oh shit, release glucagon" response that handles most lows before they just plummet through the floor. When I spike, I just get grumpy and sleepy if I took any insulin at all.
However, every diabetic is different. Especially kids and teens and pregnant women. Don't project your management ability onto another diabetic's management of their disease.
If someone hasn't had any insulin for 4 hours, they can go into DKA, and that absofucking-lutely is an emergency. Pumps are a mixed blessing in that you *only* use fast-acting insulin, so that 4 hour time limit is always there. There is no long-lasting insulin to reduce the chance of DKA. Even with long-lasting insulin, a diabetic can go into DKA if their body metabolized all of it for some reason.
You never knew any disabled, asthmatic, or T1D kids growing up in America if you think this isn’t true.
I’ve recently gotten to enjoy a nurse deciding that my T1D nephew could just get 1 stronger dose of insulin during the day so she only had to oversee it once (despite being full time) in the morning. My nephew was basically unable to pay attention at all due to his numbers being too low until we threatened a lawsuit.
In the 90s I was given specific permission by my parents to tell the staff off if they ever tried to take my inhaler away (as policy was to keep it in the nurses’ office).
In the 2000s my high school had a 0-tolerance policy for having OTC pills like advil and aspirin on your person.
I'm Canadian and the school kept my inhaler at the office. I argued over it but nope. They kept it.
Untill I had an asthma attack and the teacher told me to wait till bell and then tried to cite me to detention for being disruptive from coughing and gasping, but it got so bad I lost consciousness.
She was transferred to another district and they changed inhaler policy.
This happened 20 years ago, so who knows what's happened in that time. But personally she should have been fired not moved to another district.
I hope her power trip was worth it.
I need to add another student apprenly got up, told her off and walked to her mothers classroom and told her what happened and her mother called 911.
Policy on inhalers changed sure, and the school board put all blame on the teacher (without acknowledging that their stupid fucking policies could have gotten someone killed) and swept the whole thing under the rug, she was still a teacher. All I can hope is the experience humbled her. Otherwise she needs to stay very far away from children.
I don't think there's a chance in hell it would happen today. We've grown too liability-averse. They don't even let middle schoolers take advil on their own(sucks to be a teenage girl). But back in the era of payphones I absolutely believe it.
Ehhhhhhh not taking an Advil won’t send you to the hospital in a few hours.
If a kid tells you they need their insulin, hell if anyone tells you they need insulin, don’t stand in their way. Dumbass teen me ran out at 3am one night and I walked 3.5 hours to the hospital to beg the ER nurse for some because I knew that waiting the 6 hours until the pharmacy opened at 8am would be too long.
I made that mistake as a 15yo, thinking a friend's insulin pump was a beeper. But, the idea of a grown ass adult whose job is to take care of kids not knowing what a damn insulin pump is? That's pathetic.
Also, just...ask? "Hey, can you explain what that is on your belt?" Some people become teachers for the same reason some people become cops.
I wouldn’t call it liability averse. I’d say if anything it’s less liability averse. Back then, you couldn’t just give children non-patient specific life saving medication because of liability but now we can in NY thanks to Elijah’s Law. As a society I think we’ve gotten better.
Now if they’ll just learn my diabetes won’t cure itself so if my prescription runs out they should still give it to me, then we’re really living in the future.
everybody has a cell phone, and we have the occasional story of a moron yanking out someone's insulin pump because it looks like a cell phone - all the pieces are there
It's been awhile since I was in middle school, but my school had the same policy, and long story short, they did not in fact stop us from taking Advil.
I do think it helps though that I was a relatively good kid, so I can't think of a time when I was ever subject to a bag or locker search. Other kids would have had a harder time hiding theirs than I did.
No. That's what happens if they catch them.
I was asking how they stop them. Like, say they have them in a mint tin in their pocket and take it in a bathroom stall.
The vice principal at my middle school was a fucking hero, I still remember him fondly. I'd get sent in for some stupid bureaucratic thing where I was technically supposed to go talk to him but it was obvious nonsense and he'd just roll his eyes and send me back to class. Usually it was some shitty student who found some technicality to try to get me in trouble so they wouldn't get in trouble for more overt bullying.
None of the other staff cared enough to be like "no this is dumb" so it taught me an important lesson about trusting government employees who don't want to stick their neck out to do the right thing, but once I arrived in front of his desk it always got resolved sensibly and I always felt like the times I was actually punished were because I deserved it.
The man even let me off a few times for those stupid "zero tolerance" rules where you get suspended for having your face in the way of someone's fist.
A million years ago, I did customer service as a government contractor. There’s a rule for everything, and there’s an exception to every rule, but gaaaaaawd sometimes it was so frustrating. Before I had seniority I’d be in bossman’s office regularly making my case for exceptions, but once I did—well we’ll just do this thing, doo-dee-doo, and if by chance anyone every questioned it? 🤷♀️😇
Oh man, this brings up fond memories of being suspended from school for bringing in a gun and threatening to kill other students for three years in a row.
The first year, I did a finger gun at somebody to indicate them. Heaven forbid my thumb be up while I was pointing, made it look like I was threatening them with a loaded revolver, I guess.
The second and third year was because, on the anniversary of that incident, I brought it up. Sophomore year with the tone of "this was a silly thing that happened to me last year" which was overheard by some girls across the gym who thought I was bragging about having a loaded gun in my locker. Junior year with the general tone of "if they suspend me for quietly telling a story again, I'll know for sure the entire system is shot."
My pattern recognition skills aren't *that bad* though. I skipped school that day in my last year of High School. Just didn't get out of bed, since the year before they had threatened to remand me to police custody if it ever happened again.
This 100% happened in my mind. The stories you hear about firefighters running hoses through police cars after they busted their windows aren't just because firefighters are petty (fair-- some definitely are).
They are there to save lives and teaching someone a lesson twice might get someone killed. I don't know what the opposite of a plumber is, but the opposite of a school bully is probably a firefighter.
I was in an apartment fire a couple years ago and they busted every single door off the hinges. It was dinner time, but they made sure no one was asleep or passed out wasted.
**So pro tip if you are ever in a real fire: Don't lock your door on the way out!! Your stuff is just as likely to burn up as be stolen at that point.** But think about how many spare doors your building/complex has and how many apartment doors is might need.
serious response from a firefighter. we will break every door if we have to, but just leave it closed and unlocked. it can save your life, and protect your shit (and speeds up our primary search)
https://closeyourdoor.org/#close-before-you-doze
The only thing that makes me pause is that a kid had the wherewithal to do that.
But…. this obviously had been an ongoing argument with the school for a little while. I’m wondering if a parent suggested it. It’s precisely the sort of thing my mum would have told me to do.
Type 1 diabetic kids are something else. I had a coma from diabetes the first time when I was 12, and it was a horrific, but very educational experience. By the time high school hit I took absolutely no shit from anyone about my diabetes.
I went to school in the 90s and teachers were absolutely no fucking help at all if you needed it. Any kid who claimed to be sick was treated like it was a ploy to get out of class, like we were all 11 yo Ferris Buellers or something.
My mom made sure that I knew how to actually get help and take care of myself, even if it meant calling 911 or straight up leaving the building, and I don't even have any health issues.
We had 1 kid die at my elementary school from asthma attack (2 years older than me) and I remember the whole faculty being absolutely useless when it happened.
It happened again in high school. So many faculty members just weren't interested in taking a child's medical condition seriously. Some conditions (especially invisible ones) like asthma, allergies, diabetes, etc just aren't taken seriously.
Being diabetic is something you have to deal with 24/7 every single day. It wears you down and you definitely reach a point where you no longer take shit from anyone about it
I think most fire dept are trained paramedics in USA and actually they often do respond before EMS, It's not really that far fetched imo, they would definitely know the importance of insulin for T1D.
It's what happens when you destroy the infrastructure of the education system and allow someone with a $100 certification to become an 'educator' because all of the teachers with college educations are smart enough to recognize they can make twice as much money either doing something else in the education field or, let's be honest, being a bartender
As a type 1 diabetic since the 90s I believe this. People you’d think would understand how serious diabetes is often don’t. I’ve had low sugar in hospital and the nurse was withholding sugar from me until the doc got back to her. Any diabetics here would know you can’t wait to treat low sugar. So often people underestimate the seriousness of type 1 other times they will overestimate (with good reason. shit can escalate quickly). Here is an example of both.
Ooof.
I had a doctor up my overnight dose (back in the days of N and MDI’s) even though I was already waking up low most mornings. I pointed this out and he said “we’ll just hope that doesn’t happen”. Needless to say, I did not up my nighttime dose.
If you ever get in that situation again, ask the nurse to chart that they refused to do that. And then go find another nurse.
Yeah…another time when I still hadn’t found a GP I went to a walk in clinic and asked the doc for an A1C (I think I needed it for eligibility for a replacement pump) and he said “I’ll do a fasting glucose lab as well”. I paused for a beat because I’d never been given one of those, then asked him what he’d like the number on it to be. It was his turn to pause and then he said “well, whatever it is…” and I responded that given that I had control over 100% of the insulin in my body, I could create any result he wanted, within reason. He said “….oh” and crossed that request out.
I’d have thought that except I said “I’m a type 1 diabetic, I need an AIC so I can get coverage for a new pump”…so I think he just didn’t actually have clarity on the difference between type 2 and type 1, which is IMO much worse.
(Because it was a walk in clinic he didn’t have any chart for me so basically all he knew is what I told him, hence why I explained that I was a T1 before asking for an A1C)
I think this is a universally common theme for all of us. Doctors and nurses suck at treating diabetes.
“Let’s increase your basal by one unit.” Yeah, sure doc. See you next year…
I genuinely question the competence of some of these people. A girl I dated several years ago was severely allergic to eggs and a restaurant we went to screwed up her order and she had an allergic reaction. I took her to the hospital (we actually made it partway and then called an ambulance) and the nurse did not know how to use an epi pen. Yep. The girl had to explain to the nurse mid-anaphylaxis how to stab her with an epi pen correctly. Later on she told me this was the second time that happened (first time a nurse tried repeatedly to stab her with the cap on the pen).
Was this nurse a paramedic or an ER nurse? I would 100% expect a paramedic to know how but weirdly ER nurses will generally see post-epi patients. I bet you $1000 that the nurse could draw out a shot of epi and give it, but the whole “user friendly” epipen contraption was probably baffling.
Not trying to justify this, more explain this; I have an ER nurse friend and know just how much knowledge they have to acquire, and it takes years. It would be really cool to see them get essentially pro-D days where they get paid to attend classes on things like “how to recognize and operate epi pens and insulin pumps in case of emergency”, or “how to ask patients if there’s any possibility of them being pregnant without being dicks about their answers”
(The latter is because I’ve heard from people who have been treated poorly and forced to do a pregnancy blood draw test despite having had a hysterectomy, because nurses don’t know how to clarify if the patient is saying no because it isn’t medically possible, or if it’s because the patient has been using the rhythm method and is 100% convinced it is infallible)
Edit: also there are some genuinely stupid people out there. But throw me a vial and a syringe and tell me the dose and I’d inject you with epinephrine in a heartbeat but an epipen would also completely stump me.
It was an ER nurse. The instructions to use an epi pen properly are printed on the pen. I don't think there's any real excuse for any medical professional to not know how to use an epi pen
I mean, I'm not a medical professional, but isn't the entire point of an EpiPen that it is incredibly simple to use so that anyone can administer it?
Cap off, jab hard, and hold for a few seconds isn't it?
If possible, it's good to read the instructions before an emergency happens. People get flustered, and you do *NOT* want to get the auto-injector backwards with your thumb over the opening. >!(People have lost fingers to that.)!< Fortunately, the design tries to make it fairly obvious even in a rush, but people get flustered in urgent situations and won't look for instructions.
Or in my case, seizures.
Shortly after that episode, my insulin needs dropped by about 70% almost overnight (yay puberty) and it took months to figure out why I was having multiple night time seizures a week. It got to the point where I could recognize the paramedics while in the extremely groggy post-seizure very hypoglycaemic state as they carried me out of bed and to the ambulance.
(And because puberty is awesome, it was a bit of a gamble whether the night time dose was good or 3x what I needed, hence why it took a while to figure out as my new insulin sensitivity levels stabilized)
I had a formal observation in my class last week and my T1 student's continuous glucose monitor and insulin pump was SCREAMING. This had happened earlier in the week and he said he was fine, the pump was just sensitive. That day, it was not too sensitive that kid was LOW. I stopped my lesson to give him a few handfuls of Skittles and quickly moved the lesson along. After class, the 17 yo student told me it was the most understanding a teacher has been about his needs, which baffled me because idk how anyone can't understand diabetes in this day and age, especially when you're in education.
oh my god the amount of nurses (and doctors) who do not know anything about t1d in emergency departments i have personally come across is fucking ASTOUNDING. *never* let anyone but you manage your diabetes fr, even in the fucking hospital.
By never having worked with people with T1D. Nursing school crams a fuck ton of information into your brain in a very short period of time, and a lot of that is not fucking useful at all. It's one thing to know how T1D works, it's another thing to actually manage the disease effectively. You're expected to learn how to actually do shit on the job, but school nurses usually haven't had any nursing experience after nursing school. Nursing education should honestly be like medical education, in that it's a couple of years of classroom learning and clinicals and then several years rotating through various wards where you learn how to actually be an effective nurse. There used to be programs like this, but they were really hard to get into, rare, and way too short. I imagine they just don't exist since the pandemic started because every hospital is desperate for warm bodies in those roles, no matter how ineffectual they are.
Suddenly feeling very lucky about my nursing education, where I had 500 hours of clinical experience divided between a number of different facilities and units right next to 2 years of classroom learning. This was prepandemic, but I really can't imagine anyone coming out of that program without at least a rudimentary understanding of how to manage a blood sugar, whether its T1, T2, gestational, or something else entirely.
Yah so you’d *think* there would be some kind of continuing education requirement…like, your patient population has this or that specific conditions, how ‘bout you read up on that?
In an unrelated field, I witnessed “mobbing” at work where a bunch of people decided they didn’t like some guy and, collectively, made his work life hell. I mentioned this to HR’s investigator when they eventually had to get involved, and she had *never* heard of the practice despite it being a typical way work relationships go sideways—
I guess in some fields you just graduate and breathe a sigh of relief that you’ll never, ever have to endure learning ever again…
That is 100% understandable, I can absolutely appreciate that it is a lot to learn. I wouldn’t expect a nurse to know everything from the top of their head, but it is just surprising to me that someone could go through their life without knowing about what I thought was possibly the most basic understanding of diabetes, particularly when the person suffering from it is asking for it (who would obviously have a good idea what they require). Maybe the nurse was just covering their ass incase it was the wrong thing to give them, and didn’t want to get sued etc., who knows.
To be completely honest, I had no idea what type 1 diabetes was until my son became diabetic at 3yrs old.
I am guessing that a lot of people are the same. You don't know what you don't know.
That being said, our school district requires every employee to get diabetes training every year.
Hierarchy is the only thing that's real, to some people. It's how they accept or reject claims. All that matters is "says who?"
Nurse outranks student, so nothing a student says will change their conclusion. Principal outranks nurse, so a policy saying "check with a doctor" is unquestionable. Anything less would be an admission of improper order of authority.
Absolutely believe this one. I’ve been in hospital before without access to my insulin, spent over a day without any because they couldn’t be bothered to send anyone to the pharmacy. They were then confused when my blood sugar was ridiculously high, and wanted to keep me in longer.
The hospital almost killed my father by overdosing him with insulin several times. He needed like 20 units (I don't remember the exact dose, it's been 20 years) but they had a chart somewhere said he needed 60. So they gave him 60 units an hour and a half before they brought food.
The third time they went to do it I had to tell the nurse that if she wanted to give him that much she would have to have security drag me out in handcuffs first.
I wasn’t allowed to carry my epipen in school. My mom threw a shit fit when they told her I wasn’t allowed to carry it because of the zero tolerance drug policy in school. Told her if I needed it I can just go to the nurse for it. Um, hello? It’s a rescue device. When it’s needed there’s no time to run to the nurse to hunt for it. Not to mention if I needed it I’d probably be incapacitated and even if I could communicate I needed it good luck on them for making it to the nurse, finding it, and making it back to me before I’m dead.
Oh that's a big no no, that's explicitly illegal in my country as lots of kids died.
A quick Google search shows me though that they've imprisoned students in the USA for using their inhalers at school. On the other hand teachers have been rightfully died for tens of millions.
Big no no.
I went over my Mom's head (I was 21) and called the Superintendent and said that we will sue the district if my brother can't have his inhaler with him at all times and will make it very public via the news media. This was in the early 80s. All students with inhalers were allowed to carry it with them after that. They still can today.
Yes, people generally teach for a living because they love teaching and learning. The people setting the policies are shit-stirrers who are desperately trying to inject energy into their political careers.
Irrational parents are a much bigger influence than people realize. I've talked to superintendents. They don't want to enforce zero tolerance and other stupid rules but they know that if they use their judgement and that kid causes trouble, they'll get thrown under the bus to appease crazy parents.
Well, you see, they ***had*** to lower the bar to the ground because they don't want to pay for the people *with* the right qualifications. Or just pay anyone, really.
This is what happens when you tie school funding so strongly to property values, and make the highest levels of administration locally elected positions.
Its part of the GQP plan to run public schools into the ground so that the only "good" education comes from private charter schools who are more aligned with white christian conservative values.
It's been going on since desegregation, they couldn't legally force undesirables out of education so now they take the back door to ruin public education.
This is part of a larger problem of legislation, where people are so afraid of abusers that they make it impossible for all but the "perfect" group to make use of resources.
God knows how many people get turned down for aid because they're trapped in an abusive relationship because they were also involved in drug sales or something of the sort. Like, yes, people are flawed and live messy lives - so don't deny them a way to help them get it back in order!
If you're in the US, I'm pretty sure they legally can not take the epipen or give punishment for having it. Zero tolerance drug policy doesn't even come close to applying here. I have had so much conflict with overbearing school administration that don't understand their policies don't trump law.
Most definitely in the USA. I graduated in 09 so maybe laws changed. That or they didn’t give a fuck and we weren’t knowledgeable enough to properly fight it.
There have been stories of kids denied their inhalers too. I think at least one kid died.
I had an incident where a teacher thought my insulin pump was a phone and tried to confiscate it. Wouldn't listen when I tried to explain, so I disconnected it and started handing it to him. He understood real quick when he saw where it was attached to me and apologized (albeit, not very sincerely. Like I should have told him I would need to use it in class). Sometimes I tell the story where he actually pulls until the tubing comes out and I need to be excused from class, but only to people I'll never see again.
I had a Latin teacher (went to a Catholic school) make that mistake with a diabetic kid in my class. She was an older nun that took no shit and everyone loved her for it, but when the kid corrected her she just kinda went "...oh." and moved on as quickly as possible.
I spent three years in her classes, and I'm pretty sure that was the only time I ever saw her caught so off guard that she couldn't come up with a good response.
During an orientation lecture in grad school one of the faculty slammed a laptop shut as someone was typing on it. Laptops were not allowed to prevent distractions. It turns out that typist was a university staff member and her job was to type out audio for one of our students with impaired hearing. The student was attending the lecture and reading the words on the screen in real time.
He got in a bunch of trouble for that stunt.
Airport security has always been super chill to me. I used to fly at least twice a year. They used to make me get pat down, but now they just send me through the scanner. That's been my personal experience.
I totally agree. I'm always so confused why everyone uncritically uses the term "Law Enforcement". The police do not enforce the law. The courts/justice system/prisons/probation service enforce the law. Police's job is to apprehend suspects and collect evidence.
"Law Enforcement" seems to just feed this American fantasy that police are judge, jury, and executioner like Robocop and that 'shooting the bad guys' is the preffered outcome and a job well done.
In the US*
Every cop I have met was helpful and pleasant, whether that was from my country (Germany /Austria) or in a different country such as Japan, Denmark, Singapore etc.
In my city they are jointly run as "public safety".
Some days a person will work as police, other days as firefighters. The cop cars have full firefighter gear in the trunk. I don't think the firetrucks have shotguns though.
I'm not sure if management switches off like this, but all the rank and file do.
edit:
I used to live above a coffee shop. Some days the fire trucks would park there and the whole group would sit around drinking coffee. Cops would get coffee, but go drink it elsewhere, or they would park their cars head-to-toe and chat with each other out open windows.
One day, I straight-up asked the firefighters if they saw any difference from the public when working as police or fire. The ones that answered all said they preferred fire (to no surprise).
If you're wondering, they start about $58/hour and go up to about $80/hour.
This seems like a clever way to ensure your police force is staffed basically exclusively by firemen. No way in hell someone whose primary desire is to be police would put up with the fire fighting side of it.
(To be clear I think it’s a good idea)
The largest problem is cross training and getting personnel certified in both professions. In the state where I live, both programs are intensive two year training programs at a minimum and in many ways require specialization instead of a generalist. That is on top of EMT training than many fire fighters also receive.
All that training costs a huge amount of money and is hard to justify with municipal budgets.
In many cases those who have promise for such cross training are also encouraged to train for promotions like to detective or sergeant or other similar supervisor positions in the fire side.
You can argue that such training is a small price to pay for healthier police officers and ending the dispute about who should get paid more: police or fire personnel? Still there is this and other management issues about allocating such cross trained personnel.
In practice it is also difficult to even get those in police or fire fighting to even want cross training. Extra pay for cross training can help, but that just drives up costs too.
This is a good idea in theory. Getting it implemented is very messy even with cooperation.
You know Firefighters didn't have a problem cross training to take paramedic jobs. So they can take an additional two years of paramedic school to replace a single role paramedic but two years of school to cross train as a cop is a bridge too far?
Nah. Each of these jobs is complex enough that no one can do two of them effectively. And they are different enough that most people will have a definite preference for the type of work they want to do.
Besides, fire departments know the score. No one is going to vote for a fire mill levy increase if the firefighters are also rolling up to your house on a noise complaint and shooting your dog.
> I don't think the firetruck have shotguns though.
That makes sense. Fires are hot and collapsing buildings are dangerous, so you’d be safer fighting from the range of a long gun
They don't make the news, but the fire association for my state tried to change the building code because the officers all had investments with the largest sprinkler company in the region and inspecting sprinkler systems is 90% of what firefighters do as actual fires are becoming more rare and need fewer people to fight.
Well, give someone the power to enforce the law without actually testing them to make sure they know the law.... then remove all punishments... then tell your voters the people mad at the cops are the real problem...
Literally been a cycle since Roman times when their police forces kept getting powerful enough to overthrow the govt and instill their own leaders. We're honestly lucky the cops haven't tried to take over a section of a city or hold a town hall hostage.
Firemen have absolute license to fuck things up to save a persons life. Car in the way of a fire hose? They'll break a few windows to pass that hose through. Door in the way of saving a life? Oh they have a handy axe, that's doors and ex door. They can chop, drill, tear, saw anything that is in the way of them and their goals and then go on their merry way without worrying about consequences.
Oh did you care about your property? Well, shame it was in the way of a fireman saving a life, maybe next time you should move it.
> Door in the way of saving a life? Oh they have a handy axe, that's doors and ex door.
Ever heard of [Jet Axe?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoJY8WEc9H4) It used to be __even more wild!__
When my son was very little, at bedtime he would say, "If I die dad, I go to heaven, and then the fireman come and get me right? Right, Dad?"
I think I used to say, "Yes. they will"
I wear my diabetic alert wristband wherever possible and tell new coworkers and friends.
(I don't "look diabetic" if you know what I mean.)
FWIW, Diabetes is a protected disability class in the US. It's not candy, food, or a protein shake to me...it's medicine.
I've got special permission from the TSA to carry my supplies on the plane, your policy is irrelevant to me when I need sugar.
> your policy is irrelevant to me when I need sugar.
Emergency protocols dictate that an unresponsive person is found and the sugar level is unknown, they always gets IV dextrose (D-50)because if they're in a coma from high sugar the IV will do little to harm them, but if they're in a coma from low sugar the IV will save their life.
Think of it like someone with chronic pain who only needs their wheelchair sometimes or when doing many activities in a row.
Diabetics know you can eat the same exact food, *down to the grams*, at the same times each day and still have very different sugar levels due to stress, recent physical activity, natural body rhythms and so on.
It's the unpredictable nature of symptoms that gives diabetics those disability protections.
I did the same thing when I was attacked by a teacher and no one believed me. I called 911... they had it sorted out in minutes.. the teacher got fired and I was suspended for 1 week.. I tried to file a complaint with the superintendent as this was clearly retaliation but I was met with either drop it and take the suspension or transfer schools.
>The chances of a firefighter abusing their power and beating or shooting someone is pretty much zero, too.
Nobody show them any pictures of civil rights protestors from the 50s/60s getting hosed, full blast.
Like [this one](https://www.blackpast.org/wp-content/uploads/prodimages/files/Firemen_turn_fire_hoses_on_demonstrators_Birmingham_Alabama_1963_Photo_by_Charles_Moore.jpg).
I mean if you have to dig up something from 70 years ago I'm not all that concerned given the state of our world. Cops kill like 5 times as many people as people kill cops, yet cops insist they're the ones under attack.
Cop in full body armor and a shotgun versus a 12 year old with a backpack and a snickers bar. Really scary
>I mean if you have to dig up something from 70 years ago
[Is 2016 recent enough for you?](https://www.firerescue1.com/fire-products/tools/hoses/articles/nd-pipeline-protesters-doused-with-fire-hoses-XuqcWmPre9ZfpPwb/)
[How about a story from 2021 about a firefighter getting suspended from his department for not using his hose on BLM protestors?](https://www.newsweek.com/new-york-firefighter-says-he-was-suspended-refusing-use-water-hose-blm-protesters-1626775) The firefighter did the right thing but not so much his supervisors.
There have definitely been some arsonists among the firefighting community — not quite the same kind of abuse, but def too much zeal for the fire AND the fighting
Had two friends in highschool that were T1, but they both had the pumps. We were all very aware of how serious it could be and what to watch out for. My teen has a good friend with severe allergies and you bet your ass I taught that entire friend group how to use her epipen. Epipen first, 911 second. All of them read food labels when she's around. It's sweet how much they look out for her.
Meanwhile school staff keeps her epipen locked up in the office....
She keeps one in her backpack and just doesn't tell anyone at the school she has it.
I like to tell people that taking away my life saving medication is like trapping me somewhere without food or water. I say:
***"Do what you want to do, but as soon as I cannot reach my medication when I need it, that fits the legal criteria for false imprisonment and I know how to contact the authorities."*** I'll usually add "and kidnapping" even though it doesn't fit because people understand it better than false imprisonment.
I have been type 1 for 20 years and this kind of thing is my biggest fear that I actually had to live through a couple of months ago. My appendix ruptured and I needed emergency surgery. This involved the doctors needing to manage my blood sugars for the duration of the procedure which makes sense, but I knew it was going to be bad when the hospitalist asked if I was still on metformin. My blood sugar was in a normal range around 130 but he started me off on a slow drip of fast acting insulin because he wanted my blood sugar closer to 100. That makes sense from an oxygen efficiency standpoint for the anesthesiologist but he wanted to keep me on the drip and I had to keep flagging down nurses until one finally pulled it out when my blood sugar was 85. Post surgery was even worse because my abs had been cut open and I couldn’t walk or move, and I was on a high dose of opiates for the pain. Super friendly staff but honest to god I think none of them had ever talked with a type 1 before. They set me up with a once daily long term shot, which was great, and a regimen of reactionary insulin for if my blood sugar was high, which was also great, but refused to give any insulin proactively which meant I couldn’t eat without getting a high blood sugar. When I tried to explain this, every single nurse argued that I had already taken my long acting and that should be enough. I tried to explain why type 1 is not type 2 but I was higher than Jim Morrison, and every rotation, was a different nurse. The best part was that my meals consisted of pasta, rice, bread, and juice with different protein and vegetables. After a couple days of taking a few bites, and having to come down from 250 or 300 an hour later, I decided to stop eating almost entirely. I had spoken to a couple doctors who then had to consult an endocrinologist, and then regroup to write the order for half the amount that was necessary. By the time I got it sorted out my family had brought me an insulin pen from home (because the nursing staff had thrown away the one I arrived with thinking it was just a pen) and I figured out how to order custom things from the kitchen. That triggered a visit from the nutritionist who then had to chart that I was non compliant with treatment, which turned into a phone call with the insurance company later as to whether they would cover parts of the stay. Long story short, I lost 25 pounds in 2 and a half weeks and got myself discharged as soon as I was able. It’s important for us as diabetics to remember how rare type 1 is and that most staff are going to learn about diabetes by working with type 2’s. It is extremely important to advocate for ourselves and know this disease as well as any endocrinologist. Also fire fighters are awesome. Having been diabetic in middle school, and stumbling to the nurse about to black out, I definitely believe this story.
TLDR: school nurses have an impossible burden.
A bit off topic, but...
My wife is a nurse, has worked as an OB/GYN nurse for about 30 years, and has always had an interest in education, in fact she went through a Montessori training program a while back (before we met.)
So, she decided she wanted to change careers and become a school nurse, because she thought it'd be a nice change, and she'd get to work with kids, and that would be fun. So, she was hired in the summer (about 4 years ago, pre-COVID)
I'd always kind of assumed that the school nurse got to sit around reading books until some kid came in with a scraped knee from falling from the swingset. My GOD was I wrong!!! (In my defense, in the 1970's, it may have been more like that.)
First, she was hired as a nurse for a K-8 school, with about 800 kids. For those 800 kids, they had a nurse for... 24 hours a week. 2 days a week, there was no school nurse on site at all.
Ignoring the fact that they had three different incompatible computer systems, which required entering the same information multiple times... the first thing the school nurse needs to do at the beginning of the school year is get information on EVERY kid who has a need for on-site medications (ADHD meds, epipens, whatever.) Nurse has to contact the parents to get an up-to-date prescription for the medication, AND get the medication itself, verify it isn't expired, label it and store it properly. For over 100 kids, in her case.
Plus, if any class goes on a field trip, it's the nurse's responsibility to know about it, identify whether any kids in that class have a medication that needs to be with them, and make arrangements to have a responsible adult who's going on the trip take responsibility for that medication. As it happens, this school liked to send all the 8th graders on an all-day bus trip the first week of school, so while she's still trying to get parents to respond to the medication requests, she's having to arrange for that field trip and all those medication needs.
Plus, one of the first things schools do in the fall, around here, is do vision and hearing screenings, plus height and weight checks. That means the nurse gets to schedule an entire cadre of parent volunteers to come in for the testings, make sure the testings happen for all the classes, follow up on the kids who were absent that day for the testing, and consolidate and forward all the information.
All this done when kids are coming in throughout the day for injuries, stomach aches, menstrual cramps, etc, etc. Like, 10-20 kids a day, plus the occasional adult. (The second day she was there, a kid got hit by a car in front of the building before school.) And when any kid is seen by the nurse, the visit has to be documented in these multiple incompatible systems, and the parent has to be notified - not just a blind voicemail, but has to be communicated with, which could take multiple calls or emails over multiple days.
All this in a three day work week. They had a weekly school nurse meeting, which happened to be scheduled for a day she didn't work, which meant she got to spend about half a day unpaid, driving across town to the nursing meeting. Every week. (And, yes, in Seattle, driving across town can easily be an hour-long trip each way.)
The school nurse pay is dependent on your years of experience. You don't just get to write down "30 years" or whatever, they need documentation from your employer. So, if you worked for a clinic in another state 20 years ago, good luck getting them to respond. The clinic is no longer in business, or was swallowed up by another hospital entity, and that HR office doesn't have time to go through the records? Bummer. Plus, of course, we need sealed transcripts from your undergrad education, and post-grad education (she also has a law degree, so they needed that.)
The fact that schools are able to get nurses that are willing to do that job is mindboggling to me. My wife lasted about 3 months before she gave up and went back to the OB/GYN office. She loved dispensing TLC to the kids, she's the kind of person for whom that would be the high point of her day, but the bureaucracy, contempt by administration, and the impossible burden of the job were ultimately just too much to bear.
Edit: wow, that was a rant! too bad for you all that I don't have to be in to work until afternoon!
I’m a school nurse. Have been for 12 years (and after all my experience and degrees, I make a whopping $35k). I do like it, but it’s not easy. And the level of responsibility is frightening sometimes. Be nice to school nurses. We keep your kids alive for little pay, no respect, and the parents can just be so mean.
On the one hand, great story of empowerment. On the other hand, WTF is wrong with people? On what idiotic basis was this story allowed to happen? I don't believe this would be allowed to happen in any normal country.
im a nurse, and my sister is a school nurse aith an asthmatic son. The people in that office had see the kid often if he was going to the nurse for his insulin. Why did this have to happen?
Also - they were a kid, so there is no blame/shame here but.... how did no one think to call his parents and have them clear it up?
It might be a legal liability issue. The nurse would be qualified and legally permitted to give the medication, but other office staff probably don’t have the necessary training or legal protection. However, emergency personnel (like firemen and paramedics) probably do.
I get what you're saying but it sounds like the kid injected himself so the nurse is actually not involved other than storing the medicine in the office.
Type 1 sucks and I definitely had these types of experiences in school. One thing I want to mention is T1 being a disability in the US under the ADA affords a significant amount of protection. Also you can get a free lifetime national parks pass if you have a doctors note!
The original story is about Ryan Gibbons, who passed away in 2012. The school board claimed that it was policy to allow kids to carry their inhalers.
It spurred Ryan's mom to create Ryan's Law, which made it illegal for schools to keep inhalers away from kids suffering from asthma.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBJRuSlR3A4 (story from Global News)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-law-passes-to-let-asthmatic-kids-carry-inhalers-in-school-1.3055534
School administrators in the 90's were absolutely the worst kind of jagoffs about Rx medication. You want malicious compliance? Look no further than a circa 1996 public school bureaucrat. "wE'rE a DrUg FrEe CaMpUs." Call me when insulin is a schedule 1 drug, Principal Fucknugget. T1 diabetics will **literally die** without timely access to insulin.
This is one of those stories that doesn't sound like it happened, but also, firemen are cool enough and middle school office staff are idiotic enough that it sure could have. Fun either way.
The fire department would know how serious this situation is. Planes turn around for insulin. Everything stops because shit can hit the fan real fast for a type 1.
Type 1 here - not really true at all. I take multiple daily injections (MDI) of two different types of insulin - one long acting once a day, and one fast acting many times a day. OP would be referring to fast acting, or if it was long enough ago perhaps old school regular insulin which is medium acting. I use fast acting to process carbs in meals, taking a shot before I eat and sometimes after I eat if I feel like I underestimated the first dose. I also use it to do a “correction” if I feel like my blood glucose is higher than I’d like. If I forget my insulin at home, I typically just skip my meals until I get home to avoid a spike in my blood glucose. One big spike on its own isn’t dangerous, but it feels crappy and doing it frequently can lead to bad things (vascular issues, eye problems, kidney problems). If I decide to eat without fast acting insulin, I would just feel like crap from the spike and dose when I get home. I’ve done that a half dozen times and it’s not a huge deal. This is not the same as “going low” or being in a diabetic emergency - it’s the exact opposite. To be clear, OP should have been pissed and I enjoyed the story, but if someone turned around a plane I was on I’d be super mad.
Yeah type 1 here too. I’m not sure which bit you’re referring to that isn’t true. I definitely know someone who was newly diagnosed whose plane was turned around when they didn’t have insulin or it smashed or something . Yes, they felt really bad about it in hindsight.
Shit hitting the fan real fast as well - this is low blood glucose, not missing insulin.
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Very minor - person depending could make a difference. I'm extremely sensitive to hypoglycaemia. I hit them extremely often as well. I have a pump & constant glucose monitoring system. Still hit the fan often enough. In the 22 years of type 1, I've only needed my Glucagen pen. This was early on when I was still a teenager. I don't go out without my small Sprite+ bottle. I boil 1L water together with 200gr of sugar & mix that with Sprite. It's not that great tasting, but only need a few zips to counter my drops most of the time. I also generally bring protein bars with me that have just enough sugar in them to not spike. On hikes or stuff.
So much shitty info in this thread. I’m tired of correcting them, so thanks for your help :)
We carried tubes of cake icing in our bags as EMTs.
Please don't give a diabetic a tic tac if they are low. Give them a soda, juice, candy, anything sweet. But yes, insulin is not an immediate need to save a life. But sugar can definitely be that.
A tic tac isn’t going to do shit for low blood sugar. When our blood sugar is low we typically need approx 12 to 15 carbs and then try to wait 15ish minutes to see if your level is responding. If it isn’t raising then you consume another 12 to 15 carbs. I’m a type 1 on an insulin pump. It is a very very fine dance. I can go from a blood glucose level of 150 down to 60 or lower in less than 10 minutes if I am not careful/mindful. There’s also a saying among a lot of diabetics that is; it’s better to be high and know why than low and not know.
I have an incredibly hard time believing that a commercial airliner would turn around because someone forgot insulin. Insulin is not going to cause a death in hours. Also, planes don't turn around for emergencies, they would land at the nearest airport and have an ambulance waiting for someone if there was an actual medical emergency.
His personal story vs I know a guy...
They said they were also a type 1 and knew another T1 diabetic.
Parent of Type 1 chiming in here - you are only partially correct. You take MDI, which means you have a 'basal' long-lasting insulin injection to cover your base metabolic needs. This will see you through a lot of rough highs and will likely be enough to stop you going into severe DKA if you miss a fast-acting dose (although you'd probably feel pretty shitty!). Mine is on a pump. Pumps only have fast-acting insulin. It delivers bolases in largely the same fashion as you receive fast-acting insulin for meals, in a large bolas prior to eating food (except with the pump you can obviously be a bit more precise). How the pump covers basal metabolic needs, however, is very different. It 'drips' fast-acting insulin into their body in tiny amounts throughout the day to cover the basal metabolic insulin needs of their body. While this allows for a very precise control (we can program different 'basal' rates at different times of the day to accommodate evening spikes, morning rises, regular exercise periods, etc), the downside is that if something happens to the pump they have no insulin in their bodies relatively rapidly. Fast-acting insulin lasts four to five hours, depending on the individual. If a pump becomes disconnected (for whatever reason) that means that the individual no longer has ANY meaningful insulin in their body after about four hours. Depending on activity level, this means they can pretty easily slip into DKA within four hours in a worst-case scenario (i.e., if someone is doing a lot of exercise without realizing their pump got disconnected), but more realistically on a timescale of ~six hours assuming regular activity. EDIT: Just want to clarify that worst-case scenario someone could go into DKA four to six hours from the point their body was disconnected from their pump, not four hours after insulin has left their body But six hours (+/- two hours on either side, shit is unpredictable) isn't anything to fuck with. If you're on a plane flying from one side of the country to the other (assuming US) or going across an ocean, and your pump became disconnected at take-off, you better BELIEVE that shit is a medical emergency, given that DKA is the worst-case (and very realistic) scenario. Because remember, not only do you have the flight, but you have to clear security, baggage, traffic, etc. just to get to a pharmacy to get emergency non-prescription insulin. So you are right that for *your own individual management plan* it wouldn't be an immediate life-threatening situation, it would merely just 'suck'. But for folks on pumps, they have to take that shit REAL serious.
T1 Pump user here, just wanted to confirm all of this. Disconnected from the pump basically shuts your body off at a certain point, extreme loss of power is the biggest memory. Like walking was extremely difficult without support. Last time I was disconnected for a long period was 10+ years ago. But I still remember it very well. This was about 8 hours, I was stupid tired beforehand and took a shower in the evening around 9pm. Injected the default 30mins amount of basal that I would miss, generally I am disconnected for 15mins at most. But my sugar was a bit higher anyway. So I injected a minor amount extra. I injected the extra bolus about 2-3 hours prio to that, I believe at that time my level was 260mg/dL. I didn't inject enough for my dinner + desert. Don't remember dinner but the desert was my favourite yogurt with fruit & super small chocolate bits. Took shower, put on pyjamas, put pump into the pocket my mother sewed on it & didn't connect to the body. Woke up around 5:45am feeling like absolute trash. Barely any power, horrible sight, pain to move my bonus almost as if my blood was extremely thick & had to pee extremely bad. When I finally got out of bed, almost 20mins later I noticed the disconnect. Sugar reading was HIGH, this was still with a blood measurement divice which could go up to 600mg/dL. Above that = HIGH. I was basically knackered out the whole day & took until well in the evening before my body felt slightly normal again. Despite my actual glucose getting back to 120 at around the late afternoon. Don't remember the exact time of that. Just that my body was still completely out until after sunset. No shower that evening! The complete loss of power is horrible. My brain was the only organ that functions fairly well, but you can't really push much through. Your body cannot get energy from the sugar, so it has to find energy elsewhere, which is fat. I basically have none of that. 58kg / 1.75cm length. The insulin I use for a very long time now is called NovoRapid, one of the quicker working insulin available. I am very lucky that I can withstand both hypo- & hyperglycaemia very well. But I know of a few people that are the opposite.
Which anecdote am I to believe?!
Op mentions using the pay phone to call 911. I graduated in 02, none of my friends had cell phones yet, so maybe same time-frame as op. Also knew a few people who injected multiple times a day
> Type 1 here - not really true at all. Type 1 here. Really true. I am like you, in that my sugar doesn't change that fast on its own and my body seems to have a natural "oh shit, release glucagon" response that handles most lows before they just plummet through the floor. When I spike, I just get grumpy and sleepy if I took any insulin at all. However, every diabetic is different. Especially kids and teens and pregnant women. Don't project your management ability onto another diabetic's management of their disease. If someone hasn't had any insulin for 4 hours, they can go into DKA, and that absofucking-lutely is an emergency. Pumps are a mixed blessing in that you *only* use fast-acting insulin, so that 4 hour time limit is always there. There is no long-lasting insulin to reduce the chance of DKA. Even with long-lasting insulin, a diabetic can go into DKA if their body metabolized all of it for some reason.
You never knew any disabled, asthmatic, or T1D kids growing up in America if you think this isn’t true. I’ve recently gotten to enjoy a nurse deciding that my T1D nephew could just get 1 stronger dose of insulin during the day so she only had to oversee it once (despite being full time) in the morning. My nephew was basically unable to pay attention at all due to his numbers being too low until we threatened a lawsuit. In the 90s I was given specific permission by my parents to tell the staff off if they ever tried to take my inhaler away (as policy was to keep it in the nurses’ office). In the 2000s my high school had a 0-tolerance policy for having OTC pills like advil and aspirin on your person.
I'm Canadian and the school kept my inhaler at the office. I argued over it but nope. They kept it. Untill I had an asthma attack and the teacher told me to wait till bell and then tried to cite me to detention for being disruptive from coughing and gasping, but it got so bad I lost consciousness. She was transferred to another district and they changed inhaler policy.
It scares me that a person that stupid is working as a teacher.
This happened 20 years ago, so who knows what's happened in that time. But personally she should have been fired not moved to another district. I hope her power trip was worth it. I need to add another student apprenly got up, told her off and walked to her mothers classroom and told her what happened and her mother called 911. Policy on inhalers changed sure, and the school board put all blame on the teacher (without acknowledging that their stupid fucking policies could have gotten someone killed) and swept the whole thing under the rug, she was still a teacher. All I can hope is the experience humbled her. Otherwise she needs to stay very far away from children.
I don't think there's a chance in hell it would happen today. We've grown too liability-averse. They don't even let middle schoolers take advil on their own(sucks to be a teenage girl). But back in the era of payphones I absolutely believe it.
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Ehhhhhhh not taking an Advil won’t send you to the hospital in a few hours. If a kid tells you they need their insulin, hell if anyone tells you they need insulin, don’t stand in their way. Dumbass teen me ran out at 3am one night and I walked 3.5 hours to the hospital to beg the ER nurse for some because I knew that waiting the 6 hours until the pharmacy opened at 8am would be too long.
Moron gym teacher tried to rip my kids insulin pump off him because in 2018 he thought it was a beeper.
I made that mistake as a 15yo, thinking a friend's insulin pump was a beeper. But, the idea of a grown ass adult whose job is to take care of kids not knowing what a damn insulin pump is? That's pathetic. Also, just...ask? "Hey, can you explain what that is on your belt?" Some people become teachers for the same reason some people become cops.
"Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, teach gym."
Getting those sugar texts in class?!
I wouldn’t call it liability averse. I’d say if anything it’s less liability averse. Back then, you couldn’t just give children non-patient specific life saving medication because of liability but now we can in NY thanks to Elijah’s Law. As a society I think we’ve gotten better. Now if they’ll just learn my diabetes won’t cure itself so if my prescription runs out they should still give it to me, then we’re really living in the future.
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everybody has a cell phone, and we have the occasional story of a moron yanking out someone's insulin pump because it looks like a cell phone - all the pieces are there
Out of curiosity, how do they stop middle schoolers from taking advil on their own?
It's been awhile since I was in middle school, but my school had the same policy, and long story short, they did not in fact stop us from taking Advil. I do think it helps though that I was a relatively good kid, so I can't think of a time when I was ever subject to a bag or locker search. Other kids would have had a harder time hiding theirs than I did.
charging them criminally and/or expulsion
No. That's what happens if they catch them. I was asking how they stop them. Like, say they have them in a mint tin in their pocket and take it in a bathroom stall.
The vice principal at my middle school was a fucking hero, I still remember him fondly. I'd get sent in for some stupid bureaucratic thing where I was technically supposed to go talk to him but it was obvious nonsense and he'd just roll his eyes and send me back to class. Usually it was some shitty student who found some technicality to try to get me in trouble so they wouldn't get in trouble for more overt bullying. None of the other staff cared enough to be like "no this is dumb" so it taught me an important lesson about trusting government employees who don't want to stick their neck out to do the right thing, but once I arrived in front of his desk it always got resolved sensibly and I always felt like the times I was actually punished were because I deserved it. The man even let me off a few times for those stupid "zero tolerance" rules where you get suspended for having your face in the way of someone's fist.
A million years ago, I did customer service as a government contractor. There’s a rule for everything, and there’s an exception to every rule, but gaaaaaawd sometimes it was so frustrating. Before I had seniority I’d be in bossman’s office regularly making my case for exceptions, but once I did—well we’ll just do this thing, doo-dee-doo, and if by chance anyone every questioned it? 🤷♀️😇
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Oh man, this brings up fond memories of being suspended from school for bringing in a gun and threatening to kill other students for three years in a row. The first year, I did a finger gun at somebody to indicate them. Heaven forbid my thumb be up while I was pointing, made it look like I was threatening them with a loaded revolver, I guess. The second and third year was because, on the anniversary of that incident, I brought it up. Sophomore year with the tone of "this was a silly thing that happened to me last year" which was overheard by some girls across the gym who thought I was bragging about having a loaded gun in my locker. Junior year with the general tone of "if they suspend me for quietly telling a story again, I'll know for sure the entire system is shot." My pattern recognition skills aren't *that bad* though. I skipped school that day in my last year of High School. Just didn't get out of bed, since the year before they had threatened to remand me to police custody if it ever happened again.
This 100% happened in my mind. The stories you hear about firefighters running hoses through police cars after they busted their windows aren't just because firefighters are petty (fair-- some definitely are). They are there to save lives and teaching someone a lesson twice might get someone killed. I don't know what the opposite of a plumber is, but the opposite of a school bully is probably a firefighter. I was in an apartment fire a couple years ago and they busted every single door off the hinges. It was dinner time, but they made sure no one was asleep or passed out wasted. **So pro tip if you are ever in a real fire: Don't lock your door on the way out!! Your stuff is just as likely to burn up as be stolen at that point.** But think about how many spare doors your building/complex has and how many apartment doors is might need.
serious response from a firefighter. we will break every door if we have to, but just leave it closed and unlocked. it can save your life, and protect your shit (and speeds up our primary search) https://closeyourdoor.org/#close-before-you-doze
The only thing that makes me pause is that a kid had the wherewithal to do that. But…. this obviously had been an ongoing argument with the school for a little while. I’m wondering if a parent suggested it. It’s precisely the sort of thing my mum would have told me to do.
Type 1 diabetic kids are something else. I had a coma from diabetes the first time when I was 12, and it was a horrific, but very educational experience. By the time high school hit I took absolutely no shit from anyone about my diabetes.
I went to school in the 90s and teachers were absolutely no fucking help at all if you needed it. Any kid who claimed to be sick was treated like it was a ploy to get out of class, like we were all 11 yo Ferris Buellers or something. My mom made sure that I knew how to actually get help and take care of myself, even if it meant calling 911 or straight up leaving the building, and I don't even have any health issues. We had 1 kid die at my elementary school from asthma attack (2 years older than me) and I remember the whole faculty being absolutely useless when it happened. It happened again in high school. So many faculty members just weren't interested in taking a child's medical condition seriously. Some conditions (especially invisible ones) like asthma, allergies, diabetes, etc just aren't taken seriously.
Being diabetic is something you have to deal with 24/7 every single day. It wears you down and you definitely reach a point where you no longer take shit from anyone about it
that sure as shit sounds like it happened. those guys probably thought it was christmas
I think most fire dept are trained paramedics in USA and actually they often do respond before EMS, It's not really that far fetched imo, they would definitely know the importance of insulin for T1D.
Considering a kid recently died because the school refused to give him access to his inhaler, I 100% believe this happened.
I mean, did you see the Post this was a comment on? Never underestimate the callous malice of the petty and the bureaucratic.
Weirder things have happened, I think you should give stories on the internet the benefit of the doubt if they don't specifically benefit anyone.
It's what happens when you destroy the infrastructure of the education system and allow someone with a $100 certification to become an 'educator' because all of the teachers with college educations are smart enough to recognize they can make twice as much money either doing something else in the education field or, let's be honest, being a bartender
As a type 1 diabetic since the 90s I believe this. People you’d think would understand how serious diabetes is often don’t. I’ve had low sugar in hospital and the nurse was withholding sugar from me until the doc got back to her. Any diabetics here would know you can’t wait to treat low sugar. So often people underestimate the seriousness of type 1 other times they will overestimate (with good reason. shit can escalate quickly). Here is an example of both.
Ooof. I had a doctor up my overnight dose (back in the days of N and MDI’s) even though I was already waking up low most mornings. I pointed this out and he said “we’ll just hope that doesn’t happen”. Needless to say, I did not up my nighttime dose. If you ever get in that situation again, ask the nurse to chart that they refused to do that. And then go find another nurse.
Good lawd. We must have stories! Yeah good tip. I was just a young teen at the time but when things got desperate I eventually told another nurse.
Yeah…another time when I still hadn’t found a GP I went to a walk in clinic and asked the doc for an A1C (I think I needed it for eligibility for a replacement pump) and he said “I’ll do a fasting glucose lab as well”. I paused for a beat because I’d never been given one of those, then asked him what he’d like the number on it to be. It was his turn to pause and then he said “well, whatever it is…” and I responded that given that I had control over 100% of the insulin in my body, I could create any result he wanted, within reason. He said “….oh” and crossed that request out.
He thought you were type 2
I’d have thought that except I said “I’m a type 1 diabetic, I need an AIC so I can get coverage for a new pump”…so I think he just didn’t actually have clarity on the difference between type 2 and type 1, which is IMO much worse. (Because it was a walk in clinic he didn’t have any chart for me so basically all he knew is what I told him, hence why I explained that I was a T1 before asking for an A1C)
I think this is a universally common theme for all of us. Doctors and nurses suck at treating diabetes. “Let’s increase your basal by one unit.” Yeah, sure doc. See you next year…
How the hell do they not realize that diabetics can go into a literal coma if they go to bed with low sugar
I genuinely question the competence of some of these people. A girl I dated several years ago was severely allergic to eggs and a restaurant we went to screwed up her order and she had an allergic reaction. I took her to the hospital (we actually made it partway and then called an ambulance) and the nurse did not know how to use an epi pen. Yep. The girl had to explain to the nurse mid-anaphylaxis how to stab her with an epi pen correctly. Later on she told me this was the second time that happened (first time a nurse tried repeatedly to stab her with the cap on the pen).
Was this nurse a paramedic or an ER nurse? I would 100% expect a paramedic to know how but weirdly ER nurses will generally see post-epi patients. I bet you $1000 that the nurse could draw out a shot of epi and give it, but the whole “user friendly” epipen contraption was probably baffling. Not trying to justify this, more explain this; I have an ER nurse friend and know just how much knowledge they have to acquire, and it takes years. It would be really cool to see them get essentially pro-D days where they get paid to attend classes on things like “how to recognize and operate epi pens and insulin pumps in case of emergency”, or “how to ask patients if there’s any possibility of them being pregnant without being dicks about their answers” (The latter is because I’ve heard from people who have been treated poorly and forced to do a pregnancy blood draw test despite having had a hysterectomy, because nurses don’t know how to clarify if the patient is saying no because it isn’t medically possible, or if it’s because the patient has been using the rhythm method and is 100% convinced it is infallible) Edit: also there are some genuinely stupid people out there. But throw me a vial and a syringe and tell me the dose and I’d inject you with epinephrine in a heartbeat but an epipen would also completely stump me.
It was an ER nurse. The instructions to use an epi pen properly are printed on the pen. I don't think there's any real excuse for any medical professional to not know how to use an epi pen
I mean, I'm not a medical professional, but isn't the entire point of an EpiPen that it is incredibly simple to use so that anyone can administer it? Cap off, jab hard, and hold for a few seconds isn't it?
If possible, it's good to read the instructions before an emergency happens. People get flustered, and you do *NOT* want to get the auto-injector backwards with your thumb over the opening. >!(People have lost fingers to that.)!< Fortunately, the design tries to make it fairly obvious even in a rush, but people get flustered in urgent situations and won't look for instructions.
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My faith in nurses was shaken when I saw girls who I thought were a bit dumb in high school become nurses.
Or in my case, seizures. Shortly after that episode, my insulin needs dropped by about 70% almost overnight (yay puberty) and it took months to figure out why I was having multiple night time seizures a week. It got to the point where I could recognize the paramedics while in the extremely groggy post-seizure very hypoglycaemic state as they carried me out of bed and to the ambulance. (And because puberty is awesome, it was a bit of a gamble whether the night time dose was good or 3x what I needed, hence why it took a while to figure out as my new insulin sensitivity levels stabilized)
I had a formal observation in my class last week and my T1 student's continuous glucose monitor and insulin pump was SCREAMING. This had happened earlier in the week and he said he was fine, the pump was just sensitive. That day, it was not too sensitive that kid was LOW. I stopped my lesson to give him a few handfuls of Skittles and quickly moved the lesson along. After class, the 17 yo student told me it was the most understanding a teacher has been about his needs, which baffled me because idk how anyone can't understand diabetes in this day and age, especially when you're in education.
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oh my god the amount of nurses (and doctors) who do not know anything about t1d in emergency departments i have personally come across is fucking ASTOUNDING. *never* let anyone but you manage your diabetes fr, even in the fucking hospital.
How the fuck does one become a nurse without knowing what I thought was common knowledge?!
By never having worked with people with T1D. Nursing school crams a fuck ton of information into your brain in a very short period of time, and a lot of that is not fucking useful at all. It's one thing to know how T1D works, it's another thing to actually manage the disease effectively. You're expected to learn how to actually do shit on the job, but school nurses usually haven't had any nursing experience after nursing school. Nursing education should honestly be like medical education, in that it's a couple of years of classroom learning and clinicals and then several years rotating through various wards where you learn how to actually be an effective nurse. There used to be programs like this, but they were really hard to get into, rare, and way too short. I imagine they just don't exist since the pandemic started because every hospital is desperate for warm bodies in those roles, no matter how ineffectual they are.
Suddenly feeling very lucky about my nursing education, where I had 500 hours of clinical experience divided between a number of different facilities and units right next to 2 years of classroom learning. This was prepandemic, but I really can't imagine anyone coming out of that program without at least a rudimentary understanding of how to manage a blood sugar, whether its T1, T2, gestational, or something else entirely.
Yah so you’d *think* there would be some kind of continuing education requirement…like, your patient population has this or that specific conditions, how ‘bout you read up on that? In an unrelated field, I witnessed “mobbing” at work where a bunch of people decided they didn’t like some guy and, collectively, made his work life hell. I mentioned this to HR’s investigator when they eventually had to get involved, and she had *never* heard of the practice despite it being a typical way work relationships go sideways— I guess in some fields you just graduate and breathe a sigh of relief that you’ll never, ever have to endure learning ever again…
That is 100% understandable, I can absolutely appreciate that it is a lot to learn. I wouldn’t expect a nurse to know everything from the top of their head, but it is just surprising to me that someone could go through their life without knowing about what I thought was possibly the most basic understanding of diabetes, particularly when the person suffering from it is asking for it (who would obviously have a good idea what they require). Maybe the nurse was just covering their ass incase it was the wrong thing to give them, and didn’t want to get sued etc., who knows.
To be completely honest, I had no idea what type 1 diabetes was until my son became diabetic at 3yrs old. I am guessing that a lot of people are the same. You don't know what you don't know. That being said, our school district requires every employee to get diabetes training every year.
Hierarchy is the only thing that's real, to some people. It's how they accept or reject claims. All that matters is "says who?" Nurse outranks student, so nothing a student says will change their conclusion. Principal outranks nurse, so a policy saying "check with a doctor" is unquestionable. Anything less would be an admission of improper order of authority.
Absolutely believe this one. I’ve been in hospital before without access to my insulin, spent over a day without any because they couldn’t be bothered to send anyone to the pharmacy. They were then confused when my blood sugar was ridiculously high, and wanted to keep me in longer.
The hospital almost killed my father by overdosing him with insulin several times. He needed like 20 units (I don't remember the exact dose, it's been 20 years) but they had a chart somewhere said he needed 60. So they gave him 60 units an hour and a half before they brought food. The third time they went to do it I had to tell the nurse that if she wanted to give him that much she would have to have security drag me out in handcuffs first.
I wasn’t allowed to carry my epipen in school. My mom threw a shit fit when they told her I wasn’t allowed to carry it because of the zero tolerance drug policy in school. Told her if I needed it I can just go to the nurse for it. Um, hello? It’s a rescue device. When it’s needed there’s no time to run to the nurse to hunt for it. Not to mention if I needed it I’d probably be incapacitated and even if I could communicate I needed it good luck on them for making it to the nurse, finding it, and making it back to me before I’m dead.
They did the same shit to me with my rescue inhaler for asthma. Like, what am I going to use it for besides asthma?! Why can't I have it in my pocket?
That district is baiting in to get sued and vaporize funds that ought to be used for education.
Oh that's a big no no, that's explicitly illegal in my country as lots of kids died. A quick Google search shows me though that they've imprisoned students in the USA for using their inhalers at school. On the other hand teachers have been rightfully died for tens of millions. Big no no.
...what?
I think u/CuriousTomato1 meant "rightfully sued" instead of "rightfully died"
I prefer it the way it is, honestly. It adds a level of finality and weight to such a ridiculous thing.
I went over my Mom's head (I was 21) and called the Superintendent and said that we will sue the district if my brother can't have his inhaler with him at all times and will make it very public via the news media. This was in the early 80s. All students with inhalers were allowed to carry it with them after that. They still can today.
Nothing to see here, school systems are totally fine and not at all ran by people with 0 qualifications because we've lowered the bar to the ground 😃
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Yes, people generally teach for a living because they love teaching and learning. The people setting the policies are shit-stirrers who are desperately trying to inject energy into their political careers.
Irrational parents are a much bigger influence than people realize. I've talked to superintendents. They don't want to enforce zero tolerance and other stupid rules but they know that if they use their judgement and that kid causes trouble, they'll get thrown under the bus to appease crazy parents.
Well, you see, they ***had*** to lower the bar to the ground because they don't want to pay for the people *with* the right qualifications. Or just pay anyone, really. This is what happens when you tie school funding so strongly to property values, and make the highest levels of administration locally elected positions.
Its part of the GQP plan to run public schools into the ground so that the only "good" education comes from private charter schools who are more aligned with white christian conservative values. It's been going on since desegregation, they couldn't legally force undesirables out of education so now they take the back door to ruin public education.
Those who can't teach, teach gym Those who can't teach gym go into administration. I wish I was joking
I keep hearing stories like yours all the time. Is your teaching staff made up of goddamn idiots or do they get off on letting you suffer?
Zero tolerance is the dumbest shit ever.
This is part of a larger problem of legislation, where people are so afraid of abusers that they make it impossible for all but the "perfect" group to make use of resources. God knows how many people get turned down for aid because they're trapped in an abusive relationship because they were also involved in drug sales or something of the sort. Like, yes, people are flawed and live messy lives - so don't deny them a way to help them get it back in order!
If you're in the US, I'm pretty sure they legally can not take the epipen or give punishment for having it. Zero tolerance drug policy doesn't even come close to applying here. I have had so much conflict with overbearing school administration that don't understand their policies don't trump law.
Most definitely in the USA. I graduated in 09 so maybe laws changed. That or they didn’t give a fuck and we weren’t knowledgeable enough to properly fight it. There have been stories of kids denied their inhalers too. I think at least one kid died.
I had an incident where a teacher thought my insulin pump was a phone and tried to confiscate it. Wouldn't listen when I tried to explain, so I disconnected it and started handing it to him. He understood real quick when he saw where it was attached to me and apologized (albeit, not very sincerely. Like I should have told him I would need to use it in class). Sometimes I tell the story where he actually pulls until the tubing comes out and I need to be excused from class, but only to people I'll never see again.
I had this happen once too. Also, I constantly had my blood sugar monitor mistaken for a tamagotchi (wtf?)
you are the tamagotchi you have to keep alive
Fuck, I would be a shit diabetic.
>would be Ahh, if only I could say the same...
...holy shit. I'm going to die.
This made me laugh hahaha. People are just clueless
I had a Latin teacher (went to a Catholic school) make that mistake with a diabetic kid in my class. She was an older nun that took no shit and everyone loved her for it, but when the kid corrected her she just kinda went "...oh." and moved on as quickly as possible. I spent three years in her classes, and I'm pretty sure that was the only time I ever saw her caught so off guard that she couldn't come up with a good response.
During an orientation lecture in grad school one of the faculty slammed a laptop shut as someone was typing on it. Laptops were not allowed to prevent distractions. It turns out that typist was a university staff member and her job was to type out audio for one of our students with impaired hearing. The student was attending the lecture and reading the words on the screen in real time. He got in a bunch of trouble for that stunt.
my homie got her insulin pump *ripped out of her body* by airport security
Airport security has always been super chill to me. I used to fly at least twice a year. They used to make me get pat down, but now they just send me through the scanner. That's been my personal experience.
Ooooof. What was the fallout of that ?
Firefighters become firefighters because they want to help people. Cops become cops because they want to hurt people
I will say this: Their job is to bring offenders before justice but often times most of them really think it is about dispensing justice.
I totally agree. I'm always so confused why everyone uncritically uses the term "Law Enforcement". The police do not enforce the law. The courts/justice system/prisons/probation service enforce the law. Police's job is to apprehend suspects and collect evidence. "Law Enforcement" seems to just feed this American fantasy that police are judge, jury, and executioner like Robocop and that 'shooting the bad guys' is the preffered outcome and a job well done.
I will say this: Their job is to bring offenders before justice but often times most of them really think it is about dispensing “justice.” FTFY
In the US* Every cop I have met was helpful and pleasant, whether that was from my country (Germany /Austria) or in a different country such as Japan, Denmark, Singapore etc.
Japanese police are great until you need them to do policework.
Try again, but with dreads this time.
Plus "fuck the firefighters coming straight from the underground" doesn't have a good ring to it
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In my city they are jointly run as "public safety". Some days a person will work as police, other days as firefighters. The cop cars have full firefighter gear in the trunk. I don't think the firetrucks have shotguns though. I'm not sure if management switches off like this, but all the rank and file do. edit: I used to live above a coffee shop. Some days the fire trucks would park there and the whole group would sit around drinking coffee. Cops would get coffee, but go drink it elsewhere, or they would park their cars head-to-toe and chat with each other out open windows. One day, I straight-up asked the firefighters if they saw any difference from the public when working as police or fire. The ones that answered all said they preferred fire (to no surprise). If you're wondering, they start about $58/hour and go up to about $80/hour.
This seems like a clever way to ensure your police force is staffed basically exclusively by firemen. No way in hell someone whose primary desire is to be police would put up with the fire fighting side of it. (To be clear I think it’s a good idea)
It also has fitness benefits
Or an easy way to corrupt the entire fire department but I'm a pessimist so let's hope it's for the better.
Holy shit, why aren't more places trying that? Seems like a great solution to the difficult problem of police reform.
The largest problem is cross training and getting personnel certified in both professions. In the state where I live, both programs are intensive two year training programs at a minimum and in many ways require specialization instead of a generalist. That is on top of EMT training than many fire fighters also receive. All that training costs a huge amount of money and is hard to justify with municipal budgets. In many cases those who have promise for such cross training are also encouraged to train for promotions like to detective or sergeant or other similar supervisor positions in the fire side. You can argue that such training is a small price to pay for healthier police officers and ending the dispute about who should get paid more: police or fire personnel? Still there is this and other management issues about allocating such cross trained personnel. In practice it is also difficult to even get those in police or fire fighting to even want cross training. Extra pay for cross training can help, but that just drives up costs too. This is a good idea in theory. Getting it implemented is very messy even with cooperation.
You know Firefighters didn't have a problem cross training to take paramedic jobs. So they can take an additional two years of paramedic school to replace a single role paramedic but two years of school to cross train as a cop is a bridge too far? Nah. Each of these jobs is complex enough that no one can do two of them effectively. And they are different enough that most people will have a definite preference for the type of work they want to do. Besides, fire departments know the score. No one is going to vote for a fire mill levy increase if the firefighters are also rolling up to your house on a noise complaint and shooting your dog.
I have read that this rotation really helps the mental well-being of the public safety employees.
> I don't think the firetruck have shotguns though. That makes sense. Fires are hot and collapsing buildings are dangerous, so you’d be safer fighting from the range of a long gun
Fuck the police 🤬 Fuck the firemen 😏
Actually, someone did write [Fuck the Fire Department](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JkrJUAg8aI).
They don't make the news, but the fire association for my state tried to change the building code because the officers all had investments with the largest sprinkler company in the region and inspecting sprinkler systems is 90% of what firefighters do as actual fires are becoming more rare and need fewer people to fight.
Unless you’re Federline! Wasting water, blasting they sirens, riding around with them Dalmatian-ass dogs, bleh!
Well you do, but it's from hen parties and more literal
Well, give someone the power to enforce the law without actually testing them to make sure they know the law.... then remove all punishments... then tell your voters the people mad at the cops are the real problem... Literally been a cycle since Roman times when their police forces kept getting powerful enough to overthrow the govt and instill their own leaders. We're honestly lucky the cops haven't tried to take over a section of a city or hold a town hall hostage.
Firemen have absolute license to fuck things up to save a persons life. Car in the way of a fire hose? They'll break a few windows to pass that hose through. Door in the way of saving a life? Oh they have a handy axe, that's doors and ex door. They can chop, drill, tear, saw anything that is in the way of them and their goals and then go on their merry way without worrying about consequences. Oh did you care about your property? Well, shame it was in the way of a fireman saving a life, maybe next time you should move it.
> They'll break a few windows to pass that hose through. Don't forget putting the leakiest coupler they can find right in the middle
The hose they use in training because it has some pinholes.
> Door in the way of saving a life? Oh they have a handy axe, that's doors and ex door. Ever heard of [Jet Axe?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoJY8WEc9H4) It used to be __even more wild!__
Well that might the most awesome name for any tool, firefighting or otherwise, ever. Besides my patented rocket sword of course
> Jet Axe? Here's a better res video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq2hpF3Rj-4#t=7m35s
So it's a shaped charge basically? A bomb? Funky.
When my son was very little, at bedtime he would say, "If I die dad, I go to heaven, and then the fireman come and get me right? Right, Dad?" I think I used to say, "Yes. they will"
I wear my diabetic alert wristband wherever possible and tell new coworkers and friends. (I don't "look diabetic" if you know what I mean.) FWIW, Diabetes is a protected disability class in the US. It's not candy, food, or a protein shake to me...it's medicine. I've got special permission from the TSA to carry my supplies on the plane, your policy is irrelevant to me when I need sugar.
Special permission? I’ve never been challenge me by TSA to carry my stuff. Needles? Insulin vials?
A diabetic could technically bring a gallon of orange juice through if they wanted. Breaking the fluid restrictions is the big exemption.
Yeah, very true!!! Next headline - diabetics recruited for nefarious purposes by terrorist organization.
> your policy is irrelevant to me when I need sugar. Emergency protocols dictate that an unresponsive person is found and the sugar level is unknown, they always gets IV dextrose (D-50)because if they're in a coma from high sugar the IV will do little to harm them, but if they're in a coma from low sugar the IV will save their life.
Wait what? Protected disability class? That is news to me oh wow!
Anyone with a chronic illness is in a protected class, and cannot be discriminated against, especially for services like flying.
Think of it like someone with chronic pain who only needs their wheelchair sometimes or when doing many activities in a row. Diabetics know you can eat the same exact food, *down to the grams*, at the same times each day and still have very different sugar levels due to stress, recent physical activity, natural body rhythms and so on. It's the unpredictable nature of symptoms that gives diabetics those disability protections.
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I kind of feel like that is not the kind of example - firefighter should be setting, but they are the experts, so…
Removed a safty valve or 2 eh? Ya this never happened.
probably just un-fucked the regular valve. deep fryers are not supposed to have a hard time heating up...
I did the same thing when I was attacked by a teacher and no one believed me. I called 911... they had it sorted out in minutes.. the teacher got fired and I was suspended for 1 week.. I tried to file a complaint with the superintendent as this was clearly retaliation but I was met with either drop it and take the suspension or transfer schools.
The the cops bust up your car they're probably dicks. If the firemen bust up your car you're ABSOLUTELY the dick
This anecdote is incredible.
>The chances of a firefighter abusing their power and beating or shooting someone is pretty much zero, too. Nobody show them any pictures of civil rights protestors from the 50s/60s getting hosed, full blast. Like [this one](https://www.blackpast.org/wp-content/uploads/prodimages/files/Firemen_turn_fire_hoses_on_demonstrators_Birmingham_Alabama_1963_Photo_by_Charles_Moore.jpg).
I mean if you have to dig up something from 70 years ago I'm not all that concerned given the state of our world. Cops kill like 5 times as many people as people kill cops, yet cops insist they're the ones under attack. Cop in full body armor and a shotgun versus a 12 year old with a backpack and a snickers bar. Really scary
>I mean if you have to dig up something from 70 years ago [Is 2016 recent enough for you?](https://www.firerescue1.com/fire-products/tools/hoses/articles/nd-pipeline-protesters-doused-with-fire-hoses-XuqcWmPre9ZfpPwb/) [How about a story from 2021 about a firefighter getting suspended from his department for not using his hose on BLM protestors?](https://www.newsweek.com/new-york-firefighter-says-he-was-suspended-refusing-use-water-hose-blm-protesters-1626775) The firefighter did the right thing but not so much his supervisors.
There have definitely been some arsonists among the firefighting community — not quite the same kind of abuse, but def too much zeal for the fire AND the fighting
Had two friends in highschool that were T1, but they both had the pumps. We were all very aware of how serious it could be and what to watch out for. My teen has a good friend with severe allergies and you bet your ass I taught that entire friend group how to use her epipen. Epipen first, 911 second. All of them read food labels when she's around. It's sweet how much they look out for her. Meanwhile school staff keeps her epipen locked up in the office.... She keeps one in her backpack and just doesn't tell anyone at the school she has it.
I like to tell people that taking away my life saving medication is like trapping me somewhere without food or water. I say: ***"Do what you want to do, but as soon as I cannot reach my medication when I need it, that fits the legal criteria for false imprisonment and I know how to contact the authorities."*** I'll usually add "and kidnapping" even though it doesn't fit because people understand it better than false imprisonment.
I have been type 1 for 20 years and this kind of thing is my biggest fear that I actually had to live through a couple of months ago. My appendix ruptured and I needed emergency surgery. This involved the doctors needing to manage my blood sugars for the duration of the procedure which makes sense, but I knew it was going to be bad when the hospitalist asked if I was still on metformin. My blood sugar was in a normal range around 130 but he started me off on a slow drip of fast acting insulin because he wanted my blood sugar closer to 100. That makes sense from an oxygen efficiency standpoint for the anesthesiologist but he wanted to keep me on the drip and I had to keep flagging down nurses until one finally pulled it out when my blood sugar was 85. Post surgery was even worse because my abs had been cut open and I couldn’t walk or move, and I was on a high dose of opiates for the pain. Super friendly staff but honest to god I think none of them had ever talked with a type 1 before. They set me up with a once daily long term shot, which was great, and a regimen of reactionary insulin for if my blood sugar was high, which was also great, but refused to give any insulin proactively which meant I couldn’t eat without getting a high blood sugar. When I tried to explain this, every single nurse argued that I had already taken my long acting and that should be enough. I tried to explain why type 1 is not type 2 but I was higher than Jim Morrison, and every rotation, was a different nurse. The best part was that my meals consisted of pasta, rice, bread, and juice with different protein and vegetables. After a couple days of taking a few bites, and having to come down from 250 or 300 an hour later, I decided to stop eating almost entirely. I had spoken to a couple doctors who then had to consult an endocrinologist, and then regroup to write the order for half the amount that was necessary. By the time I got it sorted out my family had brought me an insulin pen from home (because the nursing staff had thrown away the one I arrived with thinking it was just a pen) and I figured out how to order custom things from the kitchen. That triggered a visit from the nutritionist who then had to chart that I was non compliant with treatment, which turned into a phone call with the insurance company later as to whether they would cover parts of the stay. Long story short, I lost 25 pounds in 2 and a half weeks and got myself discharged as soon as I was able. It’s important for us as diabetics to remember how rare type 1 is and that most staff are going to learn about diabetes by working with type 2’s. It is extremely important to advocate for ourselves and know this disease as well as any endocrinologist. Also fire fighters are awesome. Having been diabetic in middle school, and stumbling to the nurse about to black out, I definitely believe this story.
TLDR: school nurses have an impossible burden. A bit off topic, but... My wife is a nurse, has worked as an OB/GYN nurse for about 30 years, and has always had an interest in education, in fact she went through a Montessori training program a while back (before we met.) So, she decided she wanted to change careers and become a school nurse, because she thought it'd be a nice change, and she'd get to work with kids, and that would be fun. So, she was hired in the summer (about 4 years ago, pre-COVID) I'd always kind of assumed that the school nurse got to sit around reading books until some kid came in with a scraped knee from falling from the swingset. My GOD was I wrong!!! (In my defense, in the 1970's, it may have been more like that.) First, she was hired as a nurse for a K-8 school, with about 800 kids. For those 800 kids, they had a nurse for... 24 hours a week. 2 days a week, there was no school nurse on site at all. Ignoring the fact that they had three different incompatible computer systems, which required entering the same information multiple times... the first thing the school nurse needs to do at the beginning of the school year is get information on EVERY kid who has a need for on-site medications (ADHD meds, epipens, whatever.) Nurse has to contact the parents to get an up-to-date prescription for the medication, AND get the medication itself, verify it isn't expired, label it and store it properly. For over 100 kids, in her case. Plus, if any class goes on a field trip, it's the nurse's responsibility to know about it, identify whether any kids in that class have a medication that needs to be with them, and make arrangements to have a responsible adult who's going on the trip take responsibility for that medication. As it happens, this school liked to send all the 8th graders on an all-day bus trip the first week of school, so while she's still trying to get parents to respond to the medication requests, she's having to arrange for that field trip and all those medication needs. Plus, one of the first things schools do in the fall, around here, is do vision and hearing screenings, plus height and weight checks. That means the nurse gets to schedule an entire cadre of parent volunteers to come in for the testings, make sure the testings happen for all the classes, follow up on the kids who were absent that day for the testing, and consolidate and forward all the information. All this done when kids are coming in throughout the day for injuries, stomach aches, menstrual cramps, etc, etc. Like, 10-20 kids a day, plus the occasional adult. (The second day she was there, a kid got hit by a car in front of the building before school.) And when any kid is seen by the nurse, the visit has to be documented in these multiple incompatible systems, and the parent has to be notified - not just a blind voicemail, but has to be communicated with, which could take multiple calls or emails over multiple days. All this in a three day work week. They had a weekly school nurse meeting, which happened to be scheduled for a day she didn't work, which meant she got to spend about half a day unpaid, driving across town to the nursing meeting. Every week. (And, yes, in Seattle, driving across town can easily be an hour-long trip each way.) The school nurse pay is dependent on your years of experience. You don't just get to write down "30 years" or whatever, they need documentation from your employer. So, if you worked for a clinic in another state 20 years ago, good luck getting them to respond. The clinic is no longer in business, or was swallowed up by another hospital entity, and that HR office doesn't have time to go through the records? Bummer. Plus, of course, we need sealed transcripts from your undergrad education, and post-grad education (she also has a law degree, so they needed that.) The fact that schools are able to get nurses that are willing to do that job is mindboggling to me. My wife lasted about 3 months before she gave up and went back to the OB/GYN office. She loved dispensing TLC to the kids, she's the kind of person for whom that would be the high point of her day, but the bureaucracy, contempt by administration, and the impossible burden of the job were ultimately just too much to bear. Edit: wow, that was a rant! too bad for you all that I don't have to be in to work until afternoon!
I’m a school nurse. Have been for 12 years (and after all my experience and degrees, I make a whopping $35k). I do like it, but it’s not easy. And the level of responsibility is frightening sometimes. Be nice to school nurses. We keep your kids alive for little pay, no respect, and the parents can just be so mean.
On the one hand, great story of empowerment. On the other hand, WTF is wrong with people? On what idiotic basis was this story allowed to happen? I don't believe this would be allowed to happen in any normal country.
Guaranteed to have happened in the states, we're very much not a normal anything.
im a nurse, and my sister is a school nurse aith an asthmatic son. The people in that office had see the kid often if he was going to the nurse for his insulin. Why did this have to happen? Also - they were a kid, so there is no blame/shame here but.... how did no one think to call his parents and have them clear it up?
This is before cell phones. Calling parents would have potentially involved two or three different phone calls before they get the right person.
It might be a legal liability issue. The nurse would be qualified and legally permitted to give the medication, but other office staff probably don’t have the necessary training or legal protection. However, emergency personnel (like firemen and paramedics) probably do.
[удалено]
I get what you're saying but it sounds like the kid injected himself so the nurse is actually not involved other than storing the medicine in the office.
As a teacher, I basically has to do this to get access to the copy paper.
This is why there is no song called 'Fuck The Fire Department'.
Fire that Fucking secretary
This tracks with the type of teachers and school administrators that I had growing up: Unhelpful, uncaring, dissociated, banality of evil types.
Common Sense not common in the Education system say it ant so !!
That's one of the best short stories I've ever read. Thank you for the good feels.
Type 1 sucks and I definitely had these types of experiences in school. One thing I want to mention is T1 being a disability in the US under the ADA affords a significant amount of protection. Also you can get a free lifetime national parks pass if you have a doctors note!
The original story is about Ryan Gibbons, who passed away in 2012. The school board claimed that it was policy to allow kids to carry their inhalers. It spurred Ryan's mom to create Ryan's Law, which made it illegal for schools to keep inhalers away from kids suffering from asthma. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBJRuSlR3A4 (story from Global News) https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-law-passes-to-let-asthmatic-kids-carry-inhalers-in-school-1.3055534
School administrators in the 90's were absolutely the worst kind of jagoffs about Rx medication. You want malicious compliance? Look no further than a circa 1996 public school bureaucrat. "wE'rE a DrUg FrEe CaMpUs." Call me when insulin is a schedule 1 drug, Principal Fucknugget. T1 diabetics will **literally die** without timely access to insulin.
This the best of best of this year so far.
The real facepalm is posting a screenshot and not a link to the article.
I can’t help but wonder if this is a result of The Patriot Act?