FD resuscitates dog…but should they?
Zookeeper AB saw a story on WTOP’s website about District of Columbia firefighters aggressively saving a dog overcome by smoke in a house fire. Here at the HSZ we always applaud a feel good story about firemen and puppies (or kittens), although we sometimes cynically muse that the easiest way for the Fire Department to generate positive PR is to rescue a cute animal (have you ever seen a picture in the paper of a firefighter cuddling with a pet snake or lizard?)
In all seriousness, we note that most (if not 99% of) firemen and paramedics are not trained to start IVs on animals or give them medications — as happened in the WTOP story. We also note that the Cyanokit given to the dog costs over $100 a dose. We are absolutely not judging the actions of the firefighters in the article; they were on the scene and we were not. And obviously the citizen in the story was very pleased with the saving of her pet, so to her the Fire Department provided great value. And isn’t that what any public service agency should be all about?
However, this begs the question — should local fire departments be expected to resuscitate or even care for animals? In recent years, public sentiment about animals has changed to the point where Emergency Management agencies have to account for pets when drawing up mass evacuation or sheltering plans. Granted, a lot of people love and value their pets; but most Fire/EMS Departments have limited resources and can barely keep up with the demand of taking care of sick people.
We do think that this is an important conversation to have. If the public is changing its expectations of its Fire Departments to sometimes, or always, resuscitate or care for animals, this new mission will have important implications for training, licensing standards, equipment and ultimately budgets. FD personnel will have to be taught how to do these skills and perhaps harder, laws will have to be changed to allow them to do so (in most states the scope of practice of medical professionals is clearly delineated by statute.
Assuming that the training and legal components are taken care of, does this expectation stop at house fires? Will the public start calling 911 for a sick dog or cat?
How will this mission be paid for? Will Fire Departments be sued if they do not try to resuscitate an animal? Are veterinarians going to be happy about EMS providers expanding into this role?
We think that these are all important things that should be considered so that the public and Fire/EMS agencies have a good set of shared expectations in this space. What do you think? Please tweet us @homeseczoo and let us know or take our poll via this link here.
