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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 2nd, 2023

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  • If you have asthma don’t fuck around with inhalants. I’m a paramedic and I’ve seen too many people lately with asthma not responding to their daily inhaler (advair,breo,etc…) plus their nebulizer at home with Albuterol and ipratropium. Last shift I had two people who were dying from asthma exacerbations at home, one I managed to reverse with what I have and she left the ER 8 hours later and the other I prevented an intubation and he still went to the ICU. There’s too many irritants in the air for you to add more to yourself. Stick to edibles.




  • I have been looking into this lately, it seems there may be some commercial options that are normally for industrial use. I found some on Amazon that seem too cheap for this.

    As a firefighter I’ve been running a bunch of these battery calls. The best case scenario is they just smoke up your house., and worse case I’ve seen videos online of the room going from nothing to IDLH (Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health) in under 20 seconds.

    We’ve had a ton of ebikes and scooters burn up in homes. Never charge those inside. I’ve see power tool batteries burn up huge sections of residential houses, and I’ve seen laptop batteries explode right under the feet of other firefighters. That last bit was super cool, rarely get to see explosions that aren’t car tires popping. Those laptop batteries would have caused a huge amount of damage if the building wasn’t made of concrete - they allow modern midrises to be stuck built!




  • My county in MD has had this for years. We have a psychologist with a specialty in PTSD and first responder treatment on staff with multiple therapists in a separate section within the department. That’s been around long enough that our first psychiatrist retired from the position.

    Unfortunately I’m certain that there are very few places as progressive as we are.



  • Non Union people are so abused you think this is unethical.

    One of our leave types pays out in March any hours over 96 if we don’t ask to carry it over to the next year. We can take our overtime pay as leave (at 1.5 hours leave to 1 hour worked), and bonus holiday pay as leave.

    This year the local negotiated a cost of living increase and eliminating the bottom two step increases, resulting in an approximate 14 percent pay bump for most employees. I also received a promotion this year.

    I banked hundreds of hours of leave earlier this year from overtime and holidays that will payout in March next year 26 percent higher than when I worked it. I’ve done this every year I have promoted, and we are expected to do this since it is one of the ways we can burn our leave totals without taking off. If I had been really smart I would have carried over my leave from 2022 so it pays out next year, and I would have seen a single paycheck next year that was equal to half my years base pay last year.

    When that pays out I will still have nearly 6 months of leave banked.

    Your employer can afford to pay you. Make them pay you.