Police involvement in ODs

Ziast

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I've got a plan for my MC to OD(or nearly) on a bunch of drugs, and a friend to find him and call an ambulance for him. Now, if those paramedics were to come in and find some left over drugs, would the police get involved? Would it matter the amount of drugs found? Or do paramedics have no authority in that matter.

Thanks
 

John342

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I am a working policeman and have been so for over 30 years. The answer is yes. I have had paramedics point out drugs that I didn't see on calls. I have also searched a location for what drugs an OD'ing patient was on... This is a wide area and you could probably go either way.

The amount of drugs wouldn't matter greatly. I've seen and ignored small quantities of Marijuana, since it is unlikely they OD'd on that. In my state possession of controlled substances is a felony, and I'd be unlikely to ignore that.

Hope this helps.
 

Ziast

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That helped a lot!

Would police be called out automatically to the scene, or would the paramedics have to make a call after the discovery? Or would it depend on the country/state? And I'm assuming my MC could be charged for possession and stuff.
 

jclarkdawe

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A medical call for an OD should have police support. OD patients are very unpredictable. So the officer should notice the drugs before the EMTs. Some EMTs will point out drugs, others won't. And this can change from day-to-day and patient-to-patient. Among other issues for the EMT, if you point out the drugs, you can end up a witness in the criminal case. What a wonderful way to waste a day off. On the other hand, most EMTs want to help out the police.

One caveat to all of this is that I may bag any drugs that I see for delivery to the hospital. It will muck up the police department's chain-of-custody but if I think the doctor will need to see what the patient took, I'll take it with me. I can't identify that many medications by sight, but the hospital has people who can.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe
 

John342

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That helped a lot!

Would police be called out automatically to the scene, or would the paramedics have to make a call after the discovery? Or would it depend on the country/state? And I'm assuming my MC could be charged for possession and stuff.

That's a large "it depends" answer. Not all departments routinely assign police to ambulance calls. And, of course, not all ambulance calls come in with the actual problem... quite often they refer to symptoms. "Man passed out" or "Woman vomiting" can be an OD call. So I think you can do what you want and explain it away as you will.

If your MC has controlled substances (Cocaine, Heroine, Meth... etc.) on him, in the bed with him, on the table in front of him, I would charge him, and be there when he came around and hold the possession charge over his head to get his supplier...
 

Ziast

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His friend recognizes it as an OD and calls it in as such. And this takes place in a big city, so I'm thinking police would be sent out immediately?

Thank you so much! Now I can finally write this scene and get on with the rest of the plot.

:D
 

rugcat

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His friend recognizes it as an OD and calls it in as such. And this takes place in a big city, so I'm thinking police would be sent out immediately?

Thank you so much! Now I can finally write this scene and get on with the rest of the plot.

:D
I'm sure it varies. When I worked, cops were not routinely sent on medical OD calls unless there was some other factor involved.

Hospitals and paramedics were not all that anxious to involve police, either. When people involved in drug abuse know that the police will be called if they seek medical help, they quite naturally put it off until there's no other cholce -- and that's sometimes too late.

When I worked undercover I had to drag one of my "friends" to the hospital. His arm had become seriously infected from shooting up with contaminated meth, but he was afraid the cops would get involved if he went in.

Another day or two and he would probably lost that arm. The docs there never even thought of involving the police.
 

Oldbrasscat

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I'm a former EMT. I've worked in both a rural service and an urban one. In the rural service, we rarely had police support for medical calls (as opposed to trauma calls). If someone was ODing, and violent, we called back and got police support, as legally we are not allowed to restrain. In the urban service, anything that came in as 'altered mental status' got police support, quite often an officer partnered with a new policeman or woman. It ups their experience in a relatively low risk situation. Oh, and we often bagged up any prescription drugs, plus any other 'interesting' things we found. Takes less time just taking it all to the ER than writing down all the Rxs and the doctors need to know all the legal and illegal drugs they are taking, for interactions and overdose symptoms.

As a side note, the scariest mislabelled call I think I ever went on was to a "granny down, no rush" (older lady fallen, non life threatening) that turned out to be an older lady who had sliced open her ulnar artery while chopping carrots for supper. Scared the pants off me when I unwrapped her wrist to look at the 'little' cut she had given herself before she started feeling woozy. Keep in mind how rare it is to actually know what you're getting when you go to a call, even if the person sounds like they might have a clue. Going to an OD, especially if the cops haven't arrived yet, your EMT's might not even enter, if their protocol says to wait for police support. If they do go in, you can bet they will be checking out the surroundings for potential threats first, then looking at your character. They might be subtle about it, but it will be done.
 

WeaselFire

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Normal procedure locally on a known OD is cops roll with EMS and Fire units. Often the officer is first in, simply due to safety concerns. The other issue is our officers have AEDs (Defibrillators) and many ODs can have a stopped heart. Officers are almost always closer, although our time to on scene for medical is less than two minutes average (small town advantages).

All this can change based on circumstance, of course.

Jeff
 

John342

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His friend recognizes it as an OD and calls it in as such. And this takes place in a big city, so I'm thinking police would be sent out immediately?

Thank you so much! Now I can finally write this scene and get on with the rest of the plot.

:D

Sounds like you got it. An OD call would almost always draw a police response.

Good luck!

John
 

rugcat

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Sounds like you got it. An OD call would almost always draw a police response.

Good luck!

John
In some jurisdictions.

In others, almost never.


Oldbrass cat said:
As a side note, the scariest mislabelled call I think I ever went on was to a "granny down, no rush" (older lady fallen, non life threatening) that turned out to be an older lady who had sliced open her ulnar artery while chopping carrots for supper.
The worst mislabeled call I ever went to was a report of a Vietnamese man, possible mentally disturbed, with a gun threatening to kill people.

When we arrived the only person in evidence was an older white male sitting on his front step. When we asked him if he'd seen a Vietnamese man with a gun in the area, he got a strange look on his face.

Then dispatch came back with a correction -- sorry, not a Vietnamese man, but a Vietnam veteran.

Guess who?

Luckily, he handed over his gun without incident.
 

WeaselFire

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We had an officer down call a few years back. The term "Officer Down" means an injured or dead officer and just about every cop in the area will respond. The 911 call described an officer who had collapsed in a condominium's common area and wasn't responding, blood was visible under the body. About 15 cars, two ambulances and five fire trucks filled the neighborhood, lights and sirens going off all over town.

All for an 86-year-old officer on the condo association's board who tripped and fell on her cherry pie she was taking to her daughter's. She did get a ride to the hospital since she had been knocked unconscious, but I think the worst injury she had was the cherry pie stains.

But that's a good result. :)

Jeff