The move comes as two Aurora paramedics face felony charges for giving Elijah McClain, an unarmed, innocent Black man, an overdose of ketamine, in part, because they believed he was suffering from the condition.

Colorado’s law enforcement officers will no longer recognize “excited delirium” after a state regulatory board voted to strike the controversial diagnosis on Friday from all training documents starting in January.

The move, which was passed at the state Peace Officers Standards and Training board meeting unanimously and without debate, comes as two Aurora paramedics face felony charges for giving Elijah McClain, an unarmed, innocent Black man, an overdose of ketamine, in part, because they believed he was suffering from the condition.

  • @FoshezeEnglish
    27•1 year ago

    Technically EMS doesn’t diagnose. We assess and treat symptoms to keep the patient stable until we can get them to a medical facility. Of course there are things that are blindingly easy to diagnose and generally most doctors won’t tell you “you can’t diagnose that open femur fracture, that’s my job”. But officially the line has always been that we don’t diagnose so when we are recording and reporting things we will typically say something like “the patient is showing symptoms of XYZ” rather than “the patient has XYZ”.

    When it comes to dealing with police officially they are the only people that can involuntarily commit someone (at least in my area). And officially EMS has to respect that decision however that doesn’t always happen. There used to be a cop in my area that used to try to do that to anyone who “was problematic” and that officer got really used to hearing no from EMS. Other times EMS works with police is when there is a danger on the scene. For example if you’re called out for a gunshot wound and it is suspected that the gunman is still there then you don’t go in. You stage a block or two away and let the blue canaries clear the place first.