Saturday, November 07, 2009

First Responders

The true first responders were the victims... [More]
Howard Nemerov makes a great point that bears reinforcing every time we hear the term applied by the media to the "professionals".

John Longenecker also made a similar observation a while back.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

David, this simple lesson will not be learned.

David Codrea said...

I know. Some of the Faux Conservatives are giving Howard hell. I hope readers here will go on over and give him a hand.

Anonymous said...

"First Responders" originally was the term to describe those who first respond to a 911 call, which sort of leaves out people who are on scene when something worthy of a 911 call occurs. Training in first aid and other areas of self-sufficiency (including firearms proficiency) is emphasized by those who realize that helplessly waiting for trained "others" to arrive on scene leads to worse outcomes. Such groups include the AMA, Red Cross, Civil Defense, Boy Scouts/Girl Scouts, and proponents of smaller government.

David Codrea said...

We understand the exclusive clubs want to claim ownership of the words.

We're saying we don't recognize their authority to do that, and we will promote the term in the context of individual word definitions, and then compete for recognition "in the marketplace of ideas".

Every dictionary I'm aware of allows for multiple definitions when appropriate.

Anonymous said...

Despite the recollection of John Longenecker, First Responder has been a recognized level of training since 1979, and is a an intermediate level of training between the 8 hour Red Cross Basic First Aid course and the 81 hour EMT national standard training required in 1977-78, when I first can remember the course being offered in Massachusetts.

Wikipedia has a good description of the international concept under "Certified First Responder".

David Codrea said...

So?

What I said.

Wikipedia notwithstanding, the first person to respond is by all measures of objective reality the first responder.

Oh, I see now: "Certified First Responder..."

OK, I'll see that and raise you "Unorganized First Responder..."