Do Not Call 911! The Life and Death of an Amazon Warehouse Temp (huffingtonpost.com)

theodp writes: Earlier this week, Amazon sicced former White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on the NY Times and the ex-Amazon employees that were interviewed for the NYT's brutal August 2015 article about Amazon's white-collar workplace culture. So, one can hardly wait to see how Amazon and Carney will respond to The Life and Death of an Amazon Warehouse Temp, Dave Jamieson's epic new HuffPo piece on what the future of low-wage work really looks like. Jamieson tells the heartbreaking tale of Jeff Lockhart Jr., who through some workforce sleight-of-hand was working-at-Amazon-but-not-entitled-to-Amazon-benefits when he met his maker after he collapsed in aisle A-215 of Amazon's Chester, VA fulfillment center and laid unconscious beneath shelves stocked with Tupperware and heating pads.

Lockhart, whose white work badge distinguished him as a member of the Integrity Staffing Solutions temp worker caste as opposed to a blue-badged Amazon employee (Google yellow-badged its benefits-less temp workers), sadly left behind a wife and three kids, the oldest of which is legally blind. Jamieson writes, "Whoever found Jeff on the third floor apparently alerted Amcare, Amazon's in-house medical team, which is staffed with EMTs and other medical personnel. In the event of a health issue, Amazon instructs workers to notify security before calling emergency services. An employee brochure from a facility in Tennessee, obtained through a public records request, reads: 'In the event of a medical emergency, contact Security. Do Not call 911! Tell Security the nature of the medical emergency and location. Security and/or Amcare will provide emergency response.'" If you're pressed for reading time, Salon's Scott Timberg has a nice TL;DR recap.

Comments

Pretty standard procedure on a large campus

[Anonymous Coward]

Security does the same where I work. Call them first get trained medical personnel there faster and then they direct 911 since the place is so damn huge the ambulance could have serious issues finding the person who needs help.

Re: Pretty standard procedure on a large campus

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly what I was thinking and I worked on a large campus behind multiple security man traps. It was a maze of you weren't familiar. We had the same policy. Security would coordinate emergency response and open doors that would allow emergency personnel access.

Re:Pretty standard procedure on a large campus

[MerlynEmrys67]

I'm not even in a large office building. Imagine you call 911 and say please come to the door of "Company". Firetruck shows up goes to the front desk and they don't even begin to know where to send them. Calling security/front desk lets someone who isn't paniced fill in the details on where to go and how to get them to the site of the problem. Complaining that Amazon says to contact security first is stupid and shows that the person writing the article has never worked in a corporate environment in their life or they wouldn't write it up this way...

Re:Pretty standard procedure on a large campus

[theguyfromsaturn]

Exactly. In my university it's the same. It's not with nefarious intent. But I can call campus security and report an accident in building so, and so in room such. It means something for campus security who can get someone there quickly both because of close location and because of their familiarity with the location. They are in a better position to contact and guide emergency personnel to the proper location. It avoids confusion and can save lives.

Re:Pretty standard procedure on a large campus

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, i dont see why this is even news. Yes its sad the guy lost his life, but some times bad things happen in the world. If they broke policy ( and logic.. ) and called 911 he would still be dead.

Re:Pretty standard procedure on a large campus

[konohitowa]

Same with me at a previous employer in a large facility. We had our own fire department, too. No need to wait around hoping that the city's emergency system could even find me (after they got through security). What a pathetic hit piece. Or at least the summary thereof. I'd read it, but no need to send traffic HuffPo's way.

Re:Pretty standard procedure on a large campus

[Macman408]

Yes, this and many other things. I volunteer on my company's Emergency Response Team, so I get some exposure to this sort of thing. There are many reasons why they have you call security first:
1. Security is much closer. Even for us, where the fire truck and ambulance are only a block away, Security (and the ERT) can respond at least 3 or 4 minutes faster.
2. Security has a "go bag" that contains a defibrillator, oxygen, and a lot of other useful equipment.
3. If you call from an office phone, the address that shows up at the 911 center is our main visitor entrance. We have about 15 different buildings, and if you go to the wrong one, it'll take you an extra 5 minutes to drive to the correct one. Security knows how to direct 911 to the right place if you call them first, because they know to ask you which building and which cubicle you are located in.
4. Security can meet the ambulance. They get their vehicle out to the street to meet the ambulance and escort them to the door that is closest to the emergency. Then, they can provide access to the building and escort them directly to the emergency, since all entrances are normally locked.
5. Not all emergencies are necessarily worth calling 911, and Security has training on which ones are likely to be critical. Obviously, if someone is unconscious or not breathing, 911 should be called immediately (and that should be communicated to Security). But what if someone is just feeling a little off? Our company has a list of about 10 things that we must dial 911 for (things like chest pain, loss of consciousness, etc.); other things are up to our judgement as to their severity - but with the knowledge that it's always better to call 911 and be wrong about it being an emergency. The ambulance will show up for free, they only charge you if you go away with them.

At my company, Security is pretty much always the first on the scene, since they're always communicating via radio. A couple minutes later, people with some basic medical training (first aid, CPR, AED) from the ERT show up after getting an E-mail/phone/SMS page. And a few minutes after that, the ambulance arrives. That's even the case when somebody calls 911 from their cell phone (as long as they eventually call security too) - it's better to get our first responders on site early and get everything prepared for the ambulance to arrive, rather than to have the ambulance wandering the parking lot trying to find the emergency.

Re:Pretty standard procedure on a large campus

[JaredOfEuropa]

Also, the bit about badge colors is somewhat suggestive. Many companies issue different color badges to staff and temps.

Re:Pretty standard procedure on a large campus

[JWSmythe]

I'm glad I'm not the first one to say this. The on-site medical can triage, determine what is needed, and if necessary get EMS dispatched to the correct door with someone waiting to direct them in.

The article did make it clear that the on-site medical staff were sometimes insufficient.

You don't know if a person on the floor hit their head on something, passed out from exhaustion or low blood sugar, or (worst case) having a cardiac emergency. Rest and a candy bar doesn't require the waste of EMS resources. A bumped head can be a low priority dispatch.

When I worked in a warehouse, we had one front door. Easy, right? Not really. The warehouse was huge, with loading docks with truck bays and doors across the entire rear of the building. More than likely, the fastest route out was through the back. Telling EMS "go to the back of the building" could have wasted a lot of time trying to find *where* to be.

I found out the hard way that the "nurse" who worked the medical clinic on the night shift at my warehouse was untrained. I got a nasty gash on my hand, and I was bleeding a lot. I got a paper towel, applied pressure, got to my manager and then the clinic. The "nurse" bandaged it. The bandaging looked more like I was holding a gauze covered softball, which put no pressure on the wound. She offered to call EMS because I needed stitches. I couldn't afford the time off.

I took the bandage back off, and taught her how to do it properly. I didn't have a lot of training before that, but it was enough to properly bandage a wound (among other things). She appreciated the instruction. So I learned the "nurse" was just "someone to sit in the medical room for compliance purposes". I had to work late that day to make up for the time I spent in the clinic. They counted it as an unscheduled break. Bastards.

Re:Pretty standard procedure on a large campus

[Anonymous Coward]

We have the same. Unfortunately I've seen it in action, so I've a solid idea how it works. We call security. They call 999, and page the first-aiders. We have more than one in each building, so someone is there in 1-2 minutes max. First-aiders from the "wrong" buildings don their fluorescent jackets and setup so there's one at the roadside to wave the ambulance in, one at the right entrance, one at the bottom of the stairwell and one at the right floor.

If it works well, it works really well. If it's infested with CYA, it's an issue.

Re:Pretty standard procedure on a large campus

[jcr]

Same at Apple. If you call 911, they'll take longer to reach you than Apple security would.

-jcr

Re:Pretty standard procedure on a large campus

[RightwingNutjob]

In my workplace of several thousand people spread over a complex of 10+ sprawling buildings, calls to 911 get piped directly to security so as to prevent the chance of an ambulance showing up without the guards knowing to let them through the gate.

Re:Pretty standard procedure on a large campus

[dgatwood]

You don't know if a person on the floor hit their head on something, passed out from exhaustion or low blood sugar, or (worst case) having a cardiac emergency. Rest and a candy bar doesn't require the waste of EMS resources. A bumped head can be a low priority dispatch.

When someone loses consciousness, you cannot assume that it is a low-priority problem. It is always better to have an EMS response, and have them examine the person and determine that the person will be okay than to not have an EMS response and have the person die while waiting for the security people to call for EMS.

The employees followed a reasonable procedure. If the numbers posted above are correct, then Amazon's security staff did not. The moment they heard that there was a medical emergency with someone collapsed, they should have called on their radio to all internal first responders, but afterwards, they should have been on the phone to 911 within thirty seconds. Any delay longer than that is inexcusable.

You don't wait until your first responders get there. You stay on the line with 911 until your first responders get there, and if they determine that no ambulance is needed, you inform the 911 operator that they can cancel the call (which they may or may not do, depending on what your first responders said, but at that point, you've done your job either way).

Re:Pretty standard procedure on a large campus

[dgatwood]

The difference is that AFAIK, Apple calls 911 in parallel, not in series (presumably after security gets there and fails to resuscitate the person).

Re:Pretty standard procedure on a large campus

[HiThere]

It's in the news because Amazon was recently quite legally expressive to shut down other bad news about Amazon. Were they justified? Who can tell, they shut down the news. When you do that people get suspicious....because of lots of bad examples.

Re:Pretty standard procedure on a large campus

[slashrio]

To be practicle, isn't it possible to already call 911, and then security, who will call 911 again and tell the ambulance where exactly to go to?
This way the ambulance is already on its way while security goes to the spot and try to treat the patient, so it will be there faster than when you first call security, who only later will call 911.

Re:Pretty standard procedure on a large campus

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

The guards better not be stopping emergency vehicles.

At my campus, we were told to call the security because they knew what gate the ambulance would go through and how to direct them. It had nothing to do with taking over being a FR.

Re:Pretty standard procedure on a large campus

[poofmeisterp]

Security does the same where I work. Call them first get trained medical personnel there faster and then they direct 911 since the place is so damn huge the ambulance could have serious issues finding the person who needs help.

How about "Call in-house medical staff, then call 911, or have a person near you call 911 simultaneously"?

I know, I know. It sounds really inefficient and stupid to get a transport squad moving in case of need.

Re: Pretty standard procedure on a large campus

[robi5]

This. While most replies assume it's okay for local responders to triage, it's just a waste of time. Even calling security adds a layer of indirection. In case of emergency, call 911 and then security - this way the ambulance will be on the road and security will still have ample time to give guidance to them.

Re:Pretty standard procedure on a large campus

[sonamchauhan]

Would they? If someone had called 911 straight after calling the local EMTs, he would be in a hospital 9 minutes earlier!

Re:Pretty standard procedure on a large campus

[Swave An deBwoner]

Companies don't want to have a record of lots of 911 calls for their employees, it's that simple. It's not a question of opening doors.

Call 911, let them start on their way and let EMS contact security at the company to let them in. Any EMS worth their name knows the layout and contact numbers for someplace as huge as an Amazon warehouse.

Re: Pretty standard procedure on a large campus

[Swave An deBwoner]

Interesting. I thought it was a legal requirement that a 911 call show the actual address of the caller if it's a landline (which should include VOIP). Cellular calls can be at least roughly located via triangulation if GPS isn't available. Have you spoken with your local EMS to tell them that calls from your desk will show the incorrect location information?

Re:Pretty standard procedure on a large campus

[Swave An deBwoner]

Yes.

Re: Pretty standard procedure on a large campus

[dgatwood]

While most replies assume it's okay for local responders to triage, it's just a waste of time.

Careful, there. I know what you meant (I think), but the first time I read that, I was going to disagree with you. It is dangerous to have the local responders determine whether it is worth calling an ambulance before doing so, because it wastes critical minutes. However, it isn't a waste of time to call the local first responders first so that they can get there as quickly as possible.

IMO, calling security first is always the right thing to do. Calling 911 first can cost critical minutes, and can be fatal. Remember, you're one person, and you can only realistically call one person at a time. Security is a group of people, and thus can simultaneously start the local first responder dispatch and the ambulance dispatch while they are still on the phone with you, talking you through determining whether to administer CPR and then beginning CPR, if needed.

Remember that about 60-80% of the time, a heart attack is caused by ventricular fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia. In both cases, an AED can potentially get the person back into normal sinus rhythm; although this may or may not a permanent solution, depending on the cause, it makes the situation less critical. The in-house first responders know where to find an AED and are trained in how to use it properly. Ideally, the magic time you're trying to hit is under three minutes from cardiac event to first shock. For every minute beyond that, the odds of survival decrease by anywhere from 3% if someone is administering CPR to 10% without bystander CPR. And even in non-shockable cases, having a second person to help with CPR is likely to improve the survival rate by reducing fatigue.

By contrast, the speed of ambulance arrival is only critical if the first responders aren't able to get the heart back into rhythm through a combination of CPR followed by an AED shock. With that said, both asystolic heart attacks (flatline) and PEA rhythm (pulseless electrical activity, i.e. normal electrical activity, but no pulse) are associated with low single-digit survival rate, even in the best of circumstances (witnessed by bystanders, immediate CPR, and under 8-minute response time), and in some studies, asystolic heart attacks were as low as 0.2% survival rate. So statistically, you are much more likely to save a life by getting the in-house first responders there sooner than by getting an ambulance there sooner.

As an aside, I've often wondered if use of an epipen (or several, or even vasopressin) by in-house first responders in asystolic cardiac arrests at the onset of CPR would give a better chance of getting the heart back into v-fib faster, and make the heart shockable sooner, resulting in better outcomes. If so, getting the first responders there sooner would have an even bigger impact. For that matter, to a lesser degree, the same treatment works for PEA, so as long as there's independent manual verification that the person has no pulse before you pull out the AED and it says "no shock indicated", there's probably little increased risk from doing it, and significant increased potential for a successful outcome. But that's a subject for another study....

About that 911 thing....

[dfenstrate]

You don't call 911 because at large and complex sites, other employees are required to guide emergency services in to the particular location of the injured or ill person. In addition, these sites- as the summary suggests- have their own EMTs in order to bridge the extra time required for the Ambulance to arrive.

It's not some sleazy cost saving measure.
Security calls 911 right after they send the site EMT to the scene, and then they send another employee to bring the Ambulance crew to the right spot. Why would you think you could call the city EMTs and adequately describe, (for a 500,000 sq ft + facitlity), the correct location and entrance to use? And what makes you think the dispatcher could then accurately relay this information to the Ambulance EMTs/Paramedics ?

Re:About that 911 thing....

[Anonymous Coward]

So you want to delay the notification to the agency that can get their first (the on-site EMTs)? Why would you do that?

Re:About that 911 thing....

[Antique Geekmeister]

I can verify that getting to the emergency location can be a problem in a number of large corporate worksites, and some sites do have competent personal who can get there _much faster_ with preliminary support, for electrical issues that may require shutting down power, for flooding, and even for CPR and other urgent medical issues. I applaud their efforts, and I've even been the helpful co-worker when an employee had a heart attack, and we got the victim to where the ambulance could help them immediately, shaving roughly 15 minutes off the time to the hospital for the patient.

However, calling "corporate security" first is also an opportunity to hide illegal immigrant workers, clean up the scene of unsafe conditions, get stories straight about any mistakes that may have triggered the accident, and limit employer liability, and to control the rumor mill. It can certainly be abused.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[khasim]

It's not some sleazy cost saving measure.

It can be.

I worked for a company where HQ was in one city and the warehouse was in a different city.

Through the magic of VoIP, the calls from the warehouse went through HQ. Which is a problem when the 911 people look up the location of the phone number.

Since the company was NOT going to spend the money to run 911 calls from the warehouse to their local 911 center (or even to have the phone numbers show up correctly), the people in the warehouse were told to call 911 on their cell phones if something should happen.

Sucks when cell phone reception isn't a priority in the concrete building.

They just didn't want to pay for the technology to do it correctly AND someone to work with the local 911 people to make sure that a call from the North end of the warehouse resulted in aid showing up at the North doors instead of the South doors.

FUCK THAT SHIT! Put phones on the pillars holding up the ceiling and include documentation on which door to use. Yeah it will cost more. Yeah it will interrupt operations in an emergency. But it is still the right thing to do.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[dfenstrate]

How about "Call 911 AND Security", or is that too complicated? Call 911 and provide the nature of the emergency and facility address, then call Security and tell them the same and whatever specifics they need.

Name one large site that does it this way, and maybe we can talk. The fact is that you, at the scene, will not be in a position to escort outside EMTs to that location. Security will be the group coordinating with the outside EMTs, so let them coordinate with the outside EMTs.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[khallow]

How about "Call 911 AND Security", or is that too complicated?

That's too complicated since someone still has to direct emergency services to your location and you just wasted some time.

When they first described the system, it sounded weird, but companies like Amazon aren't inclined to hand out millions of dollars every time someone has a heart attack in an Amazon facility. If they're doing this, it is because it works.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[Guspaz]

We have a similar rule at the convention centre that I run events at. It's a huge building, there are tons of entrances, and if you call 911 yourself, you're just going to cause a big delay in the EMTs getting to the right place. Instead, you call venue security, and they will act as the first responder and call 911 and figure out the best entrance to get them to the right place.

The "don't call 911" rule is normal and needed for big facilities.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[ShanghaiBill]

How about "Call 911 AND Security", or is that too complicated?

In a medical emergency, the most important priority is getting the first trained people to the patient. The first people to arrive are going to be Amazon's in-house EMT. By calling them second, you are delaying medical care, and endangering the patient.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[Anonymous Coward]

Leftist's bait.

So many people like Moore and Huffington making a fortune off them!

Re:About that 911 thing....

[thinkwaitfast]

That makes them evil like Amazon, right?

Re:About that 911 thing....

[the_nightwulf]

Former security dispatcher for a large complex of manufacturing plants here, and this is absolutely correct. We know which of the multiple entry gates the ambulance should use to get to the complainant in the most efficient manner, and it isn't necessarily the one the reporting party uses to get to work every day (likely the only one he/she knows). We know the physical addresses of those gates, which few other people do, so emergency respondents know exactly where to go.

We contact the appropriate response (not always "911" -- usually more efficient to call the ambulance service directly) immediately. A guy with a broken finger doesn't need or want all of the response 911 will bring. Large-scale incidents, confined space rescues, etc.? That's when you want the whole cavalry. Often one dispatcher would initiate the ambulance response while another was still talking with the reporting party, so any questions about the complainant's condition could be answered.

We then work on the logistics of getting the response to the complainant. This usually involved sending one roving security unit to actually find the complainant, and another to the gate to escort the ambulance to the proper location. Once the first unit assessed the situation, they could advise the other via radio of exactly where to bring the ambulance. Depending on the response gate and time of the incident, we might also advise the local rail services to hold traffic. During times of heavy truck traffic, we'd advise the guards at gates in the ambulance's path to hold traffic, so there wasn't a mile-long line of semi trucks blocking the way.

Everyone involved was very well-trained and incidents almost always ran like clockwork. You know when they didn't? When someone called 911 directly and an ambulance showed up at a gate and no one in security knew anything about it.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[KGIII]

No, you call security - while you're on the phone with them, they'll call the EMTs or other applicable hazard workers. The added few seconds is worth it for the coordinated response that is better left to the trained security staff.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. This is anecdotal, but...
I was a Group Leader at a University facility. We were under a strict rule- in case of Emergency, call x5211. (Yes, we really did also have Big Red Buttons, and training for when to push them.)
I saw a guy fall off of the Radiation Shielding, a distance of some 25 feet. He was Big- maybe six-five and 250 pounds, gifted when it came to High Voltages, but otherwise clumsy. I went right to him, told him not to move in the most commanding voice I could muster, went to the phone about ten feet away, (We had a _lot_ of phones.), and called x5211. Within 30 seconds or so, I heard the Sirens. Within two minutes, _they_ were the ones telling him not to move, with much better commanding voices.
Our Paramedics had training above and beyond what the local Fire Department had. We really did have the best. Top places in the kind of statewide contests that Firefighters and Paramedics train for.
It turned out well; the Electrician was quite proud of his bruising, and had no problems showing it to anyone who asked. That fall would probably have me in the Hospital for a few weeks.
30 seconds between witnessing the Fall, and Sirens.

In the Amazon case, it was 9 minutes before before properly trained and vetted Paramedics were called, and another ten minutes before they showed up. That they were called at all meant that the local Amcare "EMT"s realized at some point how out of their depth the situation was.
What would have been the outcome if proper Medical attention was provided? Who knows. The guy was a Timebomb. This could just as well happen at a stoplight on the way home from work.
But ask yourself-
Would you trust Amcare?

(By the way, the Web is full of Amcare horror stories.)

Re:About that 911 thing....

[AK Marc]

It took about 10 minutes for a medical response on site from 911. So why is it wrong to get the ambulance rolling before alerting Security that there's one coming in? How long does it take security to get someone at the gate to point the ambulance to the right building?

Whenever I've needed 911 at work, I've always called 911 first, then alerted security. It's always been the right call, even where the policy is to do it the other way.

In most cases, employees are banned from calling 911 to reduce the chances of false alarms that would generate callouts. Find someone unconscious? Call security. If they are fine, there'll be no 911 call that could get charged to the company. So if you aren't an idiot, and can identify a real emergency from a fake one, you should always call 911 first, regardless of the company policy.

Why are you against people thinking for themselves?

Re:About that 911 thing....

[MarioMax]

I work at Intel at one of their major fabs in the Arizona desert.

Our emergency procedures are virtually identical to Amazon's, and our corporate health services explains why: Our facility is huge (the campus is probably a square mile in size, and the buildings are around 100,000 to 200,000 ft^2 each), and the nearest fire station or ambulance station is about a mile away. As a result it will take the local paramedics a long time to arrive and render aid. It is much faster to call our internal emergency response team (ERT) -- they will dispatch ERT parametics to render first aid and call 911 as necessary, and will direct local paramedics. Our ERT routinely trains how to get to any point on the campus within a couple minutes; our ERT is also composed of ordinary people doing non-ERT jobs throughout the campus, who are trained to respond to an ERT callout at a moment's notice.

A few years ago we had a worker literally drop dead somewhere in our fab; it was never released exactly what killed him, but they ruled it was not an industrial accident (likely a heart attack or heat stroke). What they learned from the investigation is that this individual wandered off to do something without telling anybody, and no one knew he was missing until he had already died. If you know anything about large factories, you know how easy it can be to disappear and no one notice you missing; this is exactly what happened in this case. Its why, for your own personal safety, you should always make sure someone knows where you are at all times, and have a means of contact you and you to contact others for help (whether its two-way radio, cell phone, or some other means).

As much flack as Amazon gets and often deserves, this is not one of those times they deserve it.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[KGIII]

That's never how I've seen it done anywhere - up to, and including, when working in a detention facility while enlisted. The policy has always been, call security and security deals with the EMTs. The added seconds will save minutes of confusion.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[Skuld-Chan]

Why not call both? You're acting like the paramedics who rush out there have zero clue how to get a hold of local security.

I work at a university campus - local security work closely with the police and they know to get a hold of them and absolutely rely on them to direct the real paramedics/police to the situation.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[Seizurebleak]

There is no employer liability. If he was working for a staffing agency it's the staffing agencies responsibility. In fact, if he complained about unsafe work (which in Ontario at least, you supposedly have a "right to refuse unsafe work") they could just let him go with no cause because temp contracts have a clause saying you agree to be let go for any reason with no recourse.

Couple this up with the fact that almost all factory/manufacturing jobs are now hired through agencies and all those labour laws that people fought and died for are pretty much impotent now. This isn't tin foil hat speculation, it's been in action for years and years in distribution, manufacturing and other unskilled positions.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[radarskiy]

"If security wants to cock block 911"

I think that subverting the emergency response plan worked out ahead of time with emergency services and switching to an ad hoc procedure invented by random untrained people on the spot in the heat of the moment would be a more effective cock blocking technique.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[jedidiah]

Like others have said. It's far better to get the REAL help rolling and to know and be sure that such help is actually coming rather than depending on your corporate master to do the right thing.

Re: About that 911 thing....

[ShanghaiBill]

All those people and only one phone? Why not both.

Because that will sow confusion, and likely cause delays. Security will call 911 within a few seconds anyway. So now 911 is getting two calls, tying up two operators, who have no way to know that they are the same incident. So two emergency response teams will be dispatched. One will be directed, by security, to the patient. The other will be looking around, trying to figure out where the patient is, and which door they should go in. When they see the patient being treated by the other team, they will assume they are there for someone else. So they will wander around some more, trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Meanwhile, somewhere else in the city, someone is dying because an EMT is not available.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[felrom]

Pretty much.

I read the article. It's all about feelers feeling feels. There's not a bit of objective wrongdoing even hinted at on Amazon's part. They provide a facility that can employ 8% of the unemployed people in the town, and HuffPo acts like they're awful for it. It's strenuous physical labor, and some people can't handle it, especially when you're obese (6'3", 300lbs = 37.5 BMI; for his height, 200lbs is his healthy weight).

HuffPo is just trying to ride a wave of anti-Amazon sentiment to get ad-views.

All the feelers at HuffPo can rest easy though: when the robots replace all of these people, there will be no need to bitch about the working conditions any more!

Re:About that 911 thing....

[Solandri]

It's not some sleazy cost saving measure.

In fact, the sleazy cost-saving measure would be to fire all the company's EMTs and medical staff, and tell all employees to just call 911 and wait for the city's EMTs to arrive.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[Oligonicella]

So in response to a highly detailed description of exactly why security is called first, provided by someone who was actually responsible for taking care of these situations, you simply stick to your opinion.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[ColaMan]

You're not getting the scale of things. Corporate security in this situation sounds like the right ones to call. I say "security", but I presume that they are more than that and have trained responders + equipment, which it would appear from the article that they do.

If I call 000 while I'm at work here in Australia, they can't do diddly-squat. I work at a mine site, with some 100km of underground tunnels and 'official' emergency services are 15 kilometers away down the highway. I do however have access to a couple of paramedics who are onsite and reasonably familiar with the mine if I dial '2222'. I also have access to about 20 trained emergency management personnel, as well as a team of mine rescue workers who regularly win awards in state and national competitions. We are a world unto ourselves - such is the legislation around mining that police can't enter the site without an escort by personnel, they can knock on the front door and ask nicely to come in, like everyone else.

Amazon, with their large warehouses, are in a similar position. Sure, get security to call 911 after they've sent the internal guys to assess and stabilise you - the outside guys can carry on and transport you to hospital. But a speedy response saves lives, so always get the local guys on site first.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[the_nightwulf]

If security wants to cock block 911, they can call them back and direct the response to a specific gate, or cancel the call, or something.

No, they can't. If the ambulance service is on its game, they likely are at the gate or very near by the time someone thinks "gee, maybe 911 won't know where 'the brown trailer off of that one alley next to where the old greenhouse was' is and I should call security. You know, the guys we can reach by dialling the extension posted on the "Emergency? Call xxxx" sticker on every single phone in the complex or keying up the emergency channel programmed into every plant radio." Oh, and the reporting party hasn't been anywhere near the gate in hours and has no idea the gate they just sent the ambulance to is congested by truck traffic, and they now have to redirect. Or a car carrying product from an entirely different plant spilled near an access road and the clean-up crew has traffic blocked, making what would usually be the most efficient route the absolute worst at this very moment.

But absolutely, when your co-worker has collapsed from chest pains, the best plan is to initiate a half-assed response contrary to all of the plant policies and training that everyone completes, that takes incredibly much more time because those security guys are just dicks who HAVE to know everything. /s

Those policies exist for a reason. They weren't written to shaft the little guy, they're there to ensure we can get assistance to him/her when needed. It's not really in the company's best interest to have people, you know, dying at work. I thought the "don't call 911" mandate was ridiculous too when I started that job. Didn't take long to see why it's necessary.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[stephanruby]

911 first, always.

Don't be stupid.

If you've been trained to call security first, ask them why during that training. During training, they can answer all the questions you want.

If corporate has EMTs on staff 2 minutes away, and you bypass them, you could be killing the person you're trying to rescue.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[khallow]

In most cases, employees are banned from calling 911 to reduce the chances of false alarms that would generate callouts. Find someone unconscious? Call security. If they are fine, there'll be no 911 call that could get charged to the company. So if you aren't an idiot, and can identify a real emergency from a fake one, you should always call 911 first, regardless of the company policy.

While I grant that some businesses are clueless and venal enough to try to save pennies by doing this, they'll lose it in the end in huge liability lawsuits and felony criminal negligence convictions. I don't buy that 911 first is always the right choice especially in a situation like Amazon's worksite.

Why are you against people thinking for themselves?

When all the thinking required has already been done and the procedures are already worked out, why kill someone by "thinking for yourself" rather than doing the approach that saves more lives? Thinking for yourself only works if you can think of a better approach.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[stephanruby]

In most cases, employees are banned from calling 911 to reduce the chances of false alarms that would generate callouts.

I don't believe you.

Whenever I've needed 911 at work, I've always called 911 first, then alerted security. It's always been the right call, even where the policy is to do it the other way.

Please name your employer where that was the case, where they banned you from calling 911, and they didn't have EMTs on-site. Any employer that would do this in this day and age would be exposing itself a ton of liability.

Having internal EMTs in large complexes like Amazon's is often government-mandated. Those EMTs are there for a reason. And that's because their response time is going to be so much faster than external EMTs.

Re: About that 911 thing....

[adolf]

So now 911 is getting two calls, tying up two operators, who have no way to know that they are the same incident. So two emergency response teams will be dispatched.

No, it doesn't work that way.

Phone rings. 911 operator #1 starts putting information into their CAD (computer aided dispatch) system, straight-away, including victim information. 911 operator #2 sees that there is an incident already in progress at that location, communicates with operator #1, and adds their own information from their own caller.

In the event that #1 and #2 submit overlapping information independently and simultaneously, they'll soon be merged...often by a supervisor.

Meanwhile, in your view, every time someone calls 911, another squad gets dispatched. It'd be comical if it worked that way, so it's probably a good thing that it doesn't.

The reality is that when someone falls ill/there is a car crash/a fire/whatever-folks-call-911-for, several calls are usually made to 911 -- sometimes, dozens. Fortunately for you and me and that other guy somewhere else in the city who is dying and needs an EMT, they're very good at sorting this stuff out.

It's what they do for a living.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[thegarbz]

Why not call both?

Because you can't, you can only call one at a time. So who do you call first? Security.
Now once that is done you can offload the task of directing people while you as first on scene can control the issue as best as you can. This is first aid 101. You are the most important person in this person's life and you shouldn't waste your time on the phone unless you absolutely have to (if no one comes to your aid when you shout then you call 911, if someone comes tell them to call 911).

Also yes I've worked on site where first responders have zero clue of how to get a hold of local security or even are able to find the right gate. The current place I work for example if you take the first road in you'll be greeted with a locked gate. If you find security you'll have done a compete lap around the facility at a visitor's entry that is definitely not the fastest way to get somewhere. Security are in the best position to get someone from outside to inside quickly, they are also the most proficient at giving those directions typically dealing with lots of people who can't find their way around the local area on a daily basis.

Don't be a middle man.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[thegarbz]

911 should only be called by the first person on scene if they can't get assistance from someone else. In most first aid cases the first responder will not be the one to call 911. That's first aid 101. Deal with the casualty, get someone else to catchup the 911 operator.

That's outside company requirements. Inside a company if security doesn't direct the emergency response you may have just signed the person's death warrant. Do you know the names of all first aiders, and the location of every defib on site? Our security does. While you're on the phone to 911, your first aiders are sitting around blissfully unaware that someone may be dying.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in europe, and we're instructed to call security first. I think that's relevant because we're not charged for ambulances here, even for false-alarms. (As long as it's not a prank, there should be no such thing as a false alarm. An ambulance that doesn't need to bring someone back to hospital is a happy ending, not a false-alarm). So perhaps it's not just a financial ass-covering move.

But when you call 999, you're usually expected to stay on the phone and continue to communicate with the operator. It is surprisingly difficult to call 999 and then someone else. If you're with the patient, you're usually on the phone with the operator until the paramedics arrive. Which is perfect if you're on the side of the road, but imperfect if calling security first could have got a first-aider there in less than 60 seconds.

I don't think it's about whether people can think for themselves. It's about having a practiced and rehearsed response so that the one time it's real, there are no wrinkles to iron out. The same reason we practice fire drills - one person thinking for themselves is fine. Everyone thinking for themselves in the event of an emergency, usually goes horribly wrong.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[khallow]

The thinking has NOT already all been done, that's his point. Everything should be determined on a per-case basis, and to assume that "The Company" has a one-solution-fits-all procedure is laughable.

The point here is that for calling in emergencies you need a one-solution-fits-all procedure. Flexible wastes time which is more important. We're just disagreeing over whether Amazon's procedure is good enough.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[owski]

that 30 second delay can be lethal.

And to amplify this, there is no way a call to 911 is going to only be 30 seconds long. If you're calling 911 first and then security, you're creating a delay of minutes, not seconds.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[WolfWithoutAClause]

No, the correct order is to call security first, so the EMTs will get there ASAP, then if you have ANY reason to think it's an emergency, call 911, just in case security have held off on doing that; 911 can easily sort out multiple calls from one location.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[KGIII]

Hmm... Have you ever worked somewhere that has a real security detail? They're not going to be happy if they're not alerted first. The EMTs are going to be even more pissed. Additionally, 911 calls usually ask that you remain on the line. Call security, administer first aid, wait for security to arrive. (EMTs or HAZMAT will arrive later. Security will have someone on-scene in a jiffy.)

Re:About that 911 thing....

[khallow]

Calling 911 first will get the ambulance moving sooner.

To where? Just because the ambulance is moving doesn't mean it's moving towards you. And here, getting that AED (automatic external defibulator) to the patient faster was more important.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[Antique Geekmeister]

The "security" or staff health nurse should have keys to open gates or know whom to contact about keys. In the case in the original post, they had an emergency defibrillator which they were trained to use and applied to the temp worker. I'd challenge any ambulance not already on site to find the victim in the warehouse, get to the unconscious victim faster, to ensure that other staff were out of the way, and to provide a preliminary assessment and CPR any faster. From the original article, the company's on-site staff did a _very_ good job responding quickly and effectively.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[dywolf]

"building X, room Y", not that hard.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[HJED]

And to amplify this, there is no way a call to 911 is going to only be 30 seconds long.

Either you panic a lot or you have never called 911. Just the other day, I had some bozo pull a knife on me so I was forced to Mace and thumbcuff him. I then called 911 for a police dispatch. I calmly told them what happened, where I was and 20 seconds later they had a unit heading out my way.

And I bet you continued to talk with them whilst they dispatched the unit? This delays first responders from getting to the scene. In a case like this CPR or AED is the most important thing even if it is applied inexpertly. You want the first aid trained people there as soon as possible and that's going to be security.

Security are also going to be able to remove bollards, open gates, etc to give the ambulance access to the building. They will know if there are special teams need for this response (i.e are dangerous chemicals involved) and be able to tell the emergency opperator to dispatch those teams. They will have procedures in place with the ambulance service for how to get access to the campus, etc.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[Ol Olsoc]

It took about 10 minutes for a medical response on site from 911. So why is it wrong to get the ambulance rolling before alerting Security that there's one coming in?

So the Ambulance just takes off sirens blaring, and miraculously gets to the right place? My place has ten different buildings.

Having someone call security or whatever number you are supposed to call gets everything started, they've been trained to be calm and direct people to the right place.

In addition, I don't know how all other places do it, but for us, multiple people were trained in CPR and Defib on all the floors. They would get there even before security.

The time saved by knowing how to defibrillate instead of reading the instructions first is pretty critical. Those badboys save lives, but there are ways to injure bystanders or helpers if you don't know what you are doing. They made those of us who trained on them pay real close attention. Ten minutes waiting for EMT's just doesn't hack it. Seconds count, and Security getting there in 2 minutes helps, but if there are a couple trained in every office, they are likely to be there in seconds.

How long does it take security to get someone at the gate to point the ambulance to the right building?

Why would you even ask that? You figure that the Ambulance people would know how to get there if only security wasn't there? In our place - seconds. If at a remote site, whoever was working on the person would continue, and someone would be directed to go outside to wherever the EMT's were going to show up. Security is acting as a proxy 911 to get things started. Soon as the EMT's get on site, they take over. The victim can be under almost constant attendance.

In most cases, employees are banned from calling 911 to reduce the chances of false alarms that would generate callouts.

Banning is such an odd word. These systems are put in place to save lives, and not to dismiss false alarms. If I called 911 from my desk, it would give them the name of the University - hey now, only about 40,000 different people and thousands of offices to choose from.

A huge operation over many miles just isn't like calling from your house. Safety teams have been put together to help people not die on the premises. There's all kinds of bad publicity, and investigations and lawsuits that happen after one of these unfortunate events. So even aside from a humanitarian outlook, there is a real strong reason to work efficiently in keeping people from assuming room temperature on your property, and saving someone makes for a lot of feelgood.

So if you aren't an idiot, and can identify a real emergency from a fake one, you should always call 911 first, regardless of the company policy. Why are you against people thinking for themselves?

Because if you violate company policy, and the person dies because the ambulance cant find the place and the family sues, the company will point that out that procedures were not followed. By you. You are bypassing the people who are trained to do this, and assuming responsibility yourself. Good Samaritan laws are for good Samaritans, and disregarding protocol is often not covered.

We were even trained in this (by the first responders) to start what was needed, CPR Defib, or wound compression, and start barking out orders to people to call the official number. I was protected under good Samaritan laws, but only if I followed protocol - say I told people ot not call the number because "I got this" - then I would be in trouble, and most likely liable, as well as a freaking idiot.

I fear you're thinking this is some kind of dodge on the companies part. It isn't, and it works pretty well.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[dgatwood]

Your situation was somewhat exceptional, because the immediate threat to life was likely over by the time you called. Normally, for anything that might actually be an active life-or-death emergency, 911 asks you to stay on the line until emergency responders arrive, so that if they need additional directions, they don't have to try to call you back, and maybe fail to do so. So calling 911 pretty much precludes calling corporate security unless you have ready access to more than one phone. And because the emergency responders can't get to you without help from corporate security, calling them without calling corporate security is likely to result in someone dying.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[AK Marc]

That seems stupid. Calling 911 after calling security. If security is the right call in the first place, they should call 911 immediately, not 10 minutes later, like in this example, which is why you call 911 first, for the best result for the person that needs help.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[cstacy]

Interestingly, the GPS location from your cell-phone 911 is not better than calling security. MIT people are supposed to have 617-253-1212 programmed into their cell phones for emergencies (in case they can't dial "100" on an MIT landline). It is better to call the local security, for all the other reasons given.

A few other details:

* Cell phones have emergency dialing features, including allowing dialing when the phone is locked. There is also the (dubious) feature that once the emergency number (i.e. 911) is dialed (whether the phone is unlocked or locked), the phone then becomes locked so that other calls cannot be dialed or received! Only 911 is allowed in or out. I have found that to be a bad idea and terribly confusing in practice. In any event: Is it possible to have cell phones support more than one emergency number? So you could choose "100" and have it speed dial "617-253-1212" for you? And still recognize "911"?

* At MIT you are actually getting a highly trained "security" person -- you're getting an MIT Police Dispatcher. MIT Campus Police are specially trained State Police officers. Also, MIT has it's own medical center on campus, although I don't know if it's a good trauma center - I bet the ambulance takes you downtown to a "real" emergency room at one of the city hospitals. Are the emergency responders at random companies as well trained? Or are they just minimum wage monkeys who took a CPR course?

Re:About that 911 thing....

[khallow]

Maybe that's what happened, but I see where this is going. You are accepting a good story as truth just because it's a good story. Reality doesn't work out that way.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[khallow]

And we already know a real EMT wouldn't have arrived for at least ten minutes.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[swillden]

It's not some sleazy cost saving measure.

It can be.

While the situation you describe sucks, and is a sleazy cost-saving meausure, it's completely different from what's being discussed. In your case, people were told to call 911, not security, but to do it with their cellphones rather than the office phones.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[unicornzvi]

Out of curiosity what makes the EMTs in the ambulance "real" while the ones employed by Amazon "not real"? Does anyone have any actual evidence that Amazon's EMS team are trained to a lower standard than the ones employed by the city?

Re: About that 911 thing....

[unicornzvi]

Phone rings. 911 operator #1 starts putting information into their CAD (computer aided dispatch) system, straight-away, including victim information. 911 operator #2 sees that there is an incident already in progress at that location, communicates with operator #1, and adds their own information from their own caller.

Except that the two incidents would not be recognized as the same location and might very well not be recognized as having the same symptoms (and even if they do, having two people with heart attack symptoms near one another is unlikely but not impossible.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[khallow]

Out of curiosity what makes the EMTs in the ambulance "real" while the ones employed by Amazon "not real"? Does anyone have any actual evidence that Amazon's EMS team are trained to a lower standard than the ones employed by the city?

I gather the proof is that they're employed by a big, evil corporation. That's also why it's more important how much training you have rather than how soon you get to the victim.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[sonamchauhan]

> While you're on the phone to 911, your first aiders are sitting around blissfully unaware that someone may be dying.

I agree that the local first-aider should be called *first* but that should not preclude someone calling 911 *right after* they call the local first aider.

In this case, the local first-aider delayed 9 minutes before calling 911. Better 911 show up for a broken finger, than show up 9 minutes later than they can for a heart attack!

Re:About that 911 thing....

[sonamchauhan]

You're on the right track, but the order would be call local security/medical personnel first, then call 911.

Its better that 911 get 5 calls for the same incident, than get a single call 8-9 minutes after security was called and had the chance to inspect the person (as happened here)

Re:About that 911 thing....

[Talderas]

When dealing with a medical emergency the most important thing is to get trained personnel on the victim as soon as possible. The actions you take should reflect this priority. By calling 911 you're dispatching medical personnel that will take the longest to arrive first while dispatching the personnel that will arrive the quickest last. You're going to spend at least a minute, probably two or three, talking with 911 and then you call security. You've delayed card, possibly life-saving care, from reaching that victim for a couple minutes on the mistaken belief that the ride to the hospital is going to be what saves the victim.

That is idiotic and negligent.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[Talderas]

So, by calling 911 *instead* of security, the caller has left the injured person without *any* treatment for an *additional* 9-11 minutes.

I see what you did there....

Re:About that 911 thing....

[theBuddman]

In Massachusetts, 911 goes to the State Police, who then need to find out where in the state you are, and then either coordinate with the troop in that area or transfer you to the local police/fire department in your city/town. I have experienced the latter first-hand. For that reason, I keep my city's local police number programmed on my phone. I've called it for both police and health emergencies as they can coordinate with the fire department while they are on the way. I have found that much faster than dialing 911. Same with the campus I work at. We're directed to call public safety, as they know where all the buildings are and can respond much quicker than the local police and fire departments. Again, they can notify local FD & PD while they are en-route. And the local FD & PD can respond much quicker than the State Police. In fact, State Police are only involved in serious situations (like bomb scares, etc.). The only reason to call 911 first in Mass is if you specifically need the state police, or you don't have/can't remember the local number for emergency responders.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[AK Marc]

And the local police in Texas will hang up on you or just call forward you to 911. The phones at 911 are recorded, logged, and automated in a way the local numbers aren't. Oh, and when I called the non-emergency number (311) for a police to come out to take a police report for a burglary (non emergency), I was told to hang up and call 911. Dispatch requested by a civilian can only come through 911.

It's been a little while since I called 911 in Texas, but your response is the opposite of my experience in Texas.

Perhaps the universality of 911 isn't as great as we've been lead to believe.

Re:About that 911 thing....

[thegarbz]

I agree that the local first-aider should be called *first* but that should not preclude someone calling 911 *right after* they call the local first aider.

It's almost like you need a central point which could co-ordinate communication during an emergency situation. Someone with a list of the first aiders, the ability to direct emergency responders who come to site, and someone who has multiple helping hands and could ring multiple people at once.

This only works if you have a team with an emergency response plan as every large workplace should have (or at least in Australia is mandated to have). If you have such a team and response plan then use it. The fault in the Amazon case is that this plan fell apart. You don't fix that by confusing the situation and having everyone run off and do their own thing, you fix that by resolving what went wrong in the underlying plan.

I have seen a classic counter point 3 years ago when one of our scaffolders broke their leg and sent a bone straight out the side. His workmate called an ambulance. The ambulance turned up at the wrong gate. Once the ambulance found security, they were delayed as there was no one to escort them on the premises much less to the casualty. Yep the guy was getting basic first aid by a work mate who once did a course, meanwhile the onsite nurse was alerted to an issue by the ambulance siren while she could have been out there with a bandage.

If your building has more than a handful of employees you need an emergency response plan.
If your building has a lot of employees, multiple entrances, restricted access, etc then you NEED a central point to manage an incident.

The problem here was that the local incident management plan failed, for some reason. You mentioned a broken finger, irrelevant. All the incident management plans I've seen don't make assumptions or assessment to the injuries. If you call security about any medical issue you should get a first-aider, the nurse if one is on site, and an ambulance.

You are right about one thing though. It is better than 911 shows up, but it's only better if they show up at the casualty.

Right call

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as I love bashing Amazon for its cruel working conditions, I don't see anything wrong with not calling 911. If they have a trained EMT team on location, then it's the right thing to call them, instead. We have the same policy in our office.
The local team should then immediately call 911., And if I look at the response time (20 min), then they probably did this. 20 min to a remote location like an industrial plant or warehouse is not excessive. In fact, kudos to Amazon for having properly trained and equipped EMTs!

Re:Right call

[dgatwood]

Most companies' policies say "Call security first, and then, if you feel that it is urgent to do so, you can call 911 second, but you don't have to." That's the right policy. If corporate security calls them also, the 911 dispatchers will recognize that two people are calling about the same incident, and they'll handle it appropriately by telling you that corporate security has already called them, and an ambulance has been dispatched.

Huff Post, meh

[Anonymous Coward]

An article from Huff Post? Not worth reading.

Re:Robots

[Fire_Wraith]

According to the one article, he was already making $12 an hour, which is well above minimum wage in Virginia. I'm sure we could debate whether his benefits were adequate or not, but probably the biggest challenge he faced seems to have been making the cut to be a permanent rather than seasonal/temp worker.

Even that aside though, I don't think keeping the minimum wage down is going to do anything but delay the inevitable. As robots get cheaper, what are we supposed to do, keep lowering it even further to keep pace?

The bottom line is, no matter where the minimum wage lies, the day will come where we just don't have any work available for people like this guy - not because he's lazy, or doesn't want to work, but simply because he has no skills at tasks that a machine can't do better and cheaper. What do we do then? He still has to eat, as do his kids.How is he supposed to make a living, in a world where robots gather the raw materials, process them in factories, drive the delivery trucks, etc?

At some point we'll probably have to start talking about switching to a Guaranteed Basic Income, or something similar, because there just won't be enough demand for unskilled/low skilled human labor anymore.

Robots @ Warehouses

[seven of five]

Several if not all of the Amazon warehouses now use robots to move shelves to the pickers, instead of the pickers running to the shelves. The sad story of a hard-working Joe who wanted to feed his family & died on the job is becoming the sad story of even the crappy jobs disappearing.

Prime

[Anonymous Coward]

He should have signed up for EMT Prime, which guaranteed free two minute response from the on-site EMTs.

This is an interesting social post

[SensitiveMale]

The "all corporations are evil" liberals immediately think and post that Amazon is trying to hide something and is using cost cutting to put their employees lives at risk.

Now, if someone spends even a minute thinking about this first, they'll understand that Amazon, and other large companies, have gone to considerable expense to keep medical staff in house. That calling security first puts EMTs on the scene faster and sets up the environment for security to direct outside help to the scene.

Re:This is an interesting social post

[SensitiveMale]

The fact that you're bringing "liberals" into the discussion says everything about you.

I used up "liberals" because it was an apt generalization.

The fact that you posted that your panties are in a wad about me using "liberals" by using "anonymous coward" says everything about you.

911 Call

[theodp]

From the article: "It isn't clear from any of the official reports on Jeffâ(TM)s deathâ"Amazon's, the county's or the state'sâ"how quickly Jeff was found and treated. The Amazon report says that he was discovered at âoeapproximately 2:30 a.m., which is within one minute of his last reported pick.â Yet according to a county EMS report, the 911 call came in at 2:39 a.m., suggesting he may have been down for several minutes before he was found. Amazon said CPR and the defibrillator were "quickly provided" by its in-house team. However, the ambulance didnâ(TM)t get there until 2:49 a.m.â"nearly 20 minutes after his last apparent pick, a significant amount of time in a cardiac emergency."

Re:911 Call

[MMC Monster]

Let's take the times at face value.

Someone called 911 9 minutes after his discovery. Since no one is allowed to call 911, presumably the call was made by security who are trained to perform EMS function and Basic Life Support.

EMS arrived 10 minutes after they were called.

Therefore (hypothetically) security was able to start basic life support faster than if EMS was called directly.

Re:911 Call

[Austerity Empowers]

Everywhere I've worked we have been advised not to call 911, to call the emergency line instead. The justification given is the inability of 911 to trace your call (i.e. it may look like it's coming from wherever corporate headquarters are, in another state). I've never been anywhere that you were forbidden and your job would be forfeit. I've resolved to do both if the need ever arose... but I don't honestly think our security wouldn't do everything they could to get help quickly.

Re: 911 Call

[bill_mcgonigle]

In the case of an MI the factor that matters most is how fast the patient gets to the hospital. Yeah, assuming CPR/AED, but nine minutes can be huge. It's an edge case but it's real.

Re: 911 Call

[O('_')O_Bush]

You're talking out of your asshole. I work on a large campus, and besides the fact that an EMT can't get through security to get on site or into the closed areas, we have full-time, actual doctors on site.

The advice is to call the security in an emergency, as they can move people out of restricted access areas, provide first class first response, and move them into places where the ambulances can reach.

Re: 911 Call

[Charcharodon]

You obviously are unaware how little training EMTs have. They know enough to keep you breathing, slow bleeding, and stabilize you for transport and not much more.

There is reason why medics are paid nothing. It's not exactly rocket surgery to become one.

We had the same policy on every military base I've been stationed on. 1 a military EMT had just as much training. 2 The military EMT knows the base. 3 The military EMT did not have to go through security to get to the emergency.

Re: 911 Call

[Garybaldy]

Every movie and TV show in the country does the same thing. In a medical emergency switch to channel 1 and call the EMT. The EMT decides if 911 needs to be called.

Re: 911 Call

[ModernGeek]

Also it's worth noting that many in emergency seevices hold multiple jobs, just like you. Someone that is an EMT at a plant may also be on an ambulance several days a week. That way they have more experience in a busy environment and are able to sit and relax at a job where there are fewer calls. They all generally have the same training regulated through a state ems board. It's not like these companies just hire off the street and have them go through in house power point training.

Re: 911 Call

[sevenisloud]

Why was there a 9 minute delay between the discovery and an ambulance being called? Surely the emergency services should have been called, by security, straight away. The in-house EMT could start to treat the person immediately of course, and may help to save their life, but the priority should be for someone to summon the emergency services as soon as possible. It sounds like 9 minutes spent assessing the person was 9 minutes that the arrival of a "real" EMT was delayed by.

Re: 911 Call

[sonamchauhan]

Why abuse the poor AC? There are known issues with Amazon EMTs (see links in article). If your "large campus" is really a University, its less profit-driven than Amazon is.

Also, there was a 9-minute delay calling 911. If someone called 911 straight after calling the local EMTs, this man would have gotten to a hospital 9 minutes sooner!

Amazon's "Don't call 911!" corporate mandate prevented this from happening.

Re: 911 Call

[bane2571]

Umm, yeah they do, read the summary again:
"Amazon's in-house medical team, which is staffed with EMTs and other medical personnel."

Re: 911 Call

[beastofburdon]

Did nobody else read the word "approximately" in the fucking article? That means they fucking rounded the number for simplicity. And that means since he successfully made a pick at 2:29 that they rounded backwards to the half-hour mark, so there was less of a time gap than 9 minutes. Even if it was that long it is still well within reason.

Re: 911 Call

[Charcharodon]

Double checked on the requirements on what it takes to become an EMT, yep still is only 2-6 months of training. Advanced EMT training and Paramedic training takes about 2 years total.

Not pooping on the good works you did, just stating the facts. The basic training for EMTs is very short, and training for paramedics is not much longer hence there are a lot of them and why they don't get paid much.

Re:Robots

[Anonymous Coward]

Guaranteed Basic Income? In America? What are you, some kind of comedian?

We will continue to do exactly what we do right now. We let them go jobless. Eventually they turn to crime, get themselves arrested, and spend the rest of their days in (and sometimes briefly out of) prison.

You can bet your bottom dollar that the wealthy will happily spend their tax dollars on more prisons to keep these people out of sight and out of mind (and not a threat). Once an entire generation of people dies off without having had a chance to breed because they spent their entire lives in prison, the population will be back down to more manageable numbers, where people like this guy just won't be an issue.

It isn't a pretty picture. But it is how humans do things.

Same thing at federal facilities.

[trout007]

I work at Kennedy Space Center and we are instructed to call internal emergency if there is a problem. If you call 911 it gets routed outside and the response will take much longer.

Re:Same thing at federal facilities.

[AK Marc]

If inside doesn't have an ambulance, you need to call 911 first. Then, when 911 is called, and the "real" response is on the way, call the security and let them know 911 is on the way for a medical emergency. They can send something too, or not. But delaying an ambulance response to satisfy security's power trip is a bad decision.

Re:Same thing at federal facilities.

[dfenstrate]

If inside doesn't have an ambulance, you need to call 911 first. Then, when 911 is called, and the "real" response is on the way, call the security and let them know 911 is on the way for a medical emergency. They can send something too, or not. But delaying an ambulance response to satisfy security's power trip is a bad decision.

Do you have any experience handling medical calls at a large facility?

Re:Same thing at federal facilities.

[Cederic]

But delaying an ambulance response to satisfy security's power trip is a bad decision.

Delaying an ambulance response because their crew haven't the slightest fucking idea how to find you on-site and they came in the wrong fucking entrance and there was another ambulance station that could've responded quicker had you just fucking called security and let them provide professional guidance is a bad decision.

Re:Same thing at federal facilities.

[HJED]

If inside doesn't have an ambulance, you need to call 911 first. Then, when 911 is called, and the "real" response is on the way, call the security and let them know 911 is on the way for a medical emergency. They can send something too, or not. But delaying an ambulance response to satisfy security's power trip is a bad decision.

Its clear from the this post that you've had absolutely no first aid training whatsoever. Even someone trained in basic first aid getting there a couple of seconds faster can save lives, security will call the emergency services and guide them to the correct location. If they are remotely competent they will do this faster then you can, whilst allowing you to provide first aid to the person.
If you have three other people with you that is the only time you should consider calling security and an ambulance, and you should call security as the first priority. (One person for first aid - priority one, one person to get better trained people, AEDs, etc and also allow the ambulance access to the site -- priority two, one person to call emergency services directly - probably unneeded but better safe then sorry)

Re:Same thing at federal facilities.

[dgatwood]

This. I used to work with a couple of folks who were once part of the emergency response team at Apple. Here's what I learned from conversations with them.

If you call 911 from any Apple corporate phone in Santa Clara Valley, unless they've changed things in the last few years, the address that comes up on the 911 switchboard is 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino. That's definitely true for the entire main campus, and I think it is also true for the satellite offices. If you're at one of their Sunnyvale offices, you might end up directing the ambulance to a site that is twenty minutes' drive away from the actual location of the emergency. Even if you're in one of the Cupertino offices, it could delay the ambulance by as much as ten minutes.

The minimum arrival time for first responders is likely to be four or five minutes, from the fire station down on Stevens Creek Blvd, by which time there had better be someone at the front door to let them in and lead them to the person in crisis (usually security and/or the building receptionist). Otherwise, you've delayed them further.

By contrast, IIRC, there are at least two ERTs with CPR training in every building, and there's an AED on either every floor or every other floor. So if you call security, it takes maybe a minute to get someone there with an AED and begin defibrillation and/or manual CPR if needed. The difference between one minute response and five minutes is enough to make the difference between making a complete recovery and serious brain damage. So unless you are CPR-trained and know how to use an AED (which may or may not be an fully automatic AED—I have no idea), you darn well better call corporate security and get the ERTs to your location as quickly as possible.

But their training always says, "You can call 911, but call us first." There's no rule that says you can't call 911, and if you're at all concerned about whether security will do it in a timely manner, you should absolutely do so. But call security first, because they're going to be able to respond much more quickly, and if they deem it necessary, they can also quickly deliver people to help get the person onto a stretcher, down to the lobby, and curbside, ready to go into the ambulance, saving additional critical minutes. Calling corporate security first can easily make the difference between life and death.

Re:Same thing at federal facilities.

[AK Marc]

So if you call security second, security will not guide the ambulance correctly and blame you? I'm glad I don't work at some place as murderous as you do.

Re:Same thing at federal facilities.

[AK Marc]

I have first aid training and am a fire fighter. Care to lie some more ad hominem? In this case, security delayed calling in outside help by 10 minutes. The first person on the scene should have called 911 directly and given the dead person more of a chance.

Re:Same thing at federal facilities.

[sribe]

So if you call security second, security will not guide the ambulance correctly and blame you?

No, you fucking dumbass, the ambulance will already be on the road headed to the wrong location before you call security.

Re:Same thing at federal facilities.

[sribe]

In this case, security delayed calling in outside help by 10 minutes.

Maybe. Maybe not. The details are too thin to support that accusation with any certainty.

Re:Same thing at federal facilities.

[AK Marc]

So when you call 911 and report a medical emergency at 123 Main Street, they'll send the ambulance to 321 47th street because that's what showed up in their database for your phone number?

So you have murderous security and murderous 911 dispatchers. I'm glad I don't work there or live there.

Re:Same thing at federal facilities.

[AK Marc]

The details are too thin to support that accusation with any certainty.

There have been numerous timelines posted here. They all indicate a timeline that 911 wasn't called until the local EMTs showed up and declared it over their heads, then the pros were called in. Competent medical care was delayed due to calling security. All the details available agree with that assessment. If you have a fact to point to, please share it. Othewise, I can only assume you are a fire warden with no training, or other type of wannabe who thinks he knows something, but doesn't.

Re:Same thing at federal facilities.

[Rockoon]

I have first aid training and am a fire fighter.

After reading your posts, one of two things is true:

(a) You are lying.
(b) You should be fired.

Either way, STFU.

Re:Same thing at federal facilities.

[AK Marc]

What, where you are they train first responders that they shouldn't respond until the first on the scene have a chance to respond, adding 10 minutes or longer to the ambulance response?

Where I am, the philosophy is, get the emergency response on the way as soon as possible. Don't delay the ambulance for the EMS on site to take a while to evaluate the scene - that delay could kill someone that needs an ambulance, and almost all the time, the ambulance would be needed anyway in almost all cases after stabilizing the person.

So call 911 to get the ambulance rolling, the security to notify them. The 10 seconds lost for first EMT response is less critical than 10 minutes for the ambulance. If security called 911 immediately after sending the EMTs, I'd be answering differently, but it seems that so many companies delay 911 as long as possible. If I'm collapsed on the ground, and the choice is calling local security or the professionals, I hope someone calls the professionals first.

Re:Same thing at federal facilities.

[AK Marc]

You call both. You don't call the on-site and wait 10 minutes before calling the real one.

Re:Same thing at federal facilities.

[goose-incarnated]

If inside doesn't have an ambulance, you need to call 911 first. Then, when 911 is called, and the "real" response is on the way, call the security and let them know 911 is on the way for a medical emergency. They can send something too, or not. But delaying an ambulance response to satisfy security's power trip is a bad decision.

I actually have been in an emergency at work; the primary pain was so bad that I only realised a few days later in hospital that I had also broken one of my fingers. I shudder to think what would have happened if external EMTs were called before security.

I was later told (I, of course, don't actually remember what happened as I was passed out) that security was on the scene in about 20 seconds (a guard was walking past at the time), security located the nearest first aiders ten seconds later and within a minute of me hitting the ground a first aider was beside me administering first aid (bleeding, etc). EMTs were on the scene about 15 minutes later.

Those first few seconds are vital, and calling external responders wastes valuable time while perfectly trained medical personnel are sitting around, unaware that someone is bleeding out...

Re:Robots

[Chris Johnson]

Nope. Prisons are waaaaay more expensive than Universal Basic Income. At some point it'll become about the cost.

Similar, but slightly different

[Salo2112]

We are instructed to call 911 first and then notify security. We are a local government, with actual police officers providing security and an EMS station on our campus, but we get help on the way and then let the officers, know we have a situation so they can prepare to bypass our security measures and guide the paramedics to the location of the problem. It also allows a path to be cleared to expedite the movement of the paramedics into and out of the building, and allows the police to clear out any spectators who might gather at the scene of the problem. Notifying security first is not unreasonable, but I think getting medical help rolling first is preferred.

Re:Similar, but slightly different

[Mondragon]

This is really 100% a logistics problem determined by both the size, layout, and "unusualness" of the establishment. For giant warehouses, dangerous manufacturing facilities, places with rail lines on site, etc., with multiple gates and physical building doors, the reason you don't call 911 is because you probably can't tell them anything useful about how to efficiently get to you, and once you call 911 the next call from the people who *do* know is possibly not going to go well (as they will instead try to reroute the emergency team you led to the wrong place, except maybe no one can actually figure out where they currently are in relation to where they should be). For smaller buildings or those that are more familiar (or with regular layouts like office structures with numbered floors and offices), the first call being to 911 is absolutely the right thing.

If a company has published internal documents and pamphlets that say to call security, and specifically to *NOT* call 911, then that is because they are either a) guilty of gross negligence (very unlikely), or b) have a plan in place to address issues in a way that is most efficient - sometimes developed in partnership with the local emergency services - and have qualified emergency response personnel on staff.

Re:Robots

[physicsphairy]

You can always work cheaper than a robot. Whatever a robot costs, there's nothing stopping you from charging less (well, except minimum wage laws). How will you afford to eat? Because thanks to the fact food is now produced by robots and supercheap labor, it doesn't cost very much any more.

People will always be exchanging things. Money facilitates that. It won't ever become the barrier preventing it. What really drives people away from menial labor is having better job options to where trying to outbid robots is not appealing.

Committee? I've taken the 911 calls.

[dfenstrate]

I've actually taken these 911 calls at my work place, I suppose I should have said so earlier. Generally other people in the room with me are dialing the town ambulance and calling our site EMT on the radio within seconds of the phone call. After that we call security to escort the ambulance in.
In other words, I've been the one and only layer of 'bureaucracy' between a patient and off site assistance. Neither I nor my peers screw around, and if our phone calls ever cost the company money, no one ever mentions it to us- and they wouldn't get a good response if they did.
It's unfortunate that things are worse at your site. It baffles me that anyone at a site large enough to justify on-site EMTs would quibble about a few grand for an ambulance call. We don't.

Re:Robots

[ultranova]

The only reason these people have jobs is because it's just barely cheaper to hire humans than to replace them with robots. Crank up minimum wage to $15 and they won't have a job at all.

The only reason these people have jobs is because they need money to survive, and a job is a way to get it. If a job doesn't pay enough to live on without aid, and cannot be made profitable enough to do so, then what's the point of keeping a human working it? Other than saving Amazon the cost of the robot, of course.

I, for one, much rather subsidize a human than a company.

Re:Robots

[Skuld-Chan]

Even though 12 bucks an hour is above Virginia's minimum wage - there's plenty of research that if minimum wage was tied to inflation it should be around 22 dollars an hour.

I'm genuinely surprised congress doesn't talk about this more often - or as you suggest a guaranteed basic income wage (actually I'm not surprised this isn't a topic) - or at the very least corporate housing like they do in China.

Re:You forgot the war on cops

[konohitowa]

> The know-nothing reactionary right is getting worse. So you're saying there's still room to move. The know-nothing reactionary left seems to have pegged the needle a decade ago or so.

Re:You forgot the war on cops

[konohitowa]

Sigh. Too much time on reddit. Commenting here seems more painful the more I use anything other than /.

Sears does the same thing

[rolyataylor2752]

We were not allowed to call 911 we had to contact a manager first. This problem was compounded by the management being understaffed because of failing profits.

Ug, I hate it when this happens

[rsilvergun]

ok, so the article mentions and focuses on the "Don't call 911" implying that Amazon has something to hide there. It's almost instantly debunked. EMTs need security to tell them where to go on a big campus.

Now nobody is discussing the more important issue of abusing temp workers status to get out of paying for healthcare and unemployment benefits (plus all the extra productivity you get by dangling the carrot of full time employment before your temps). Maybe a few do and then fall back on the "But He Made more than minimum wage" blather to justify it, ignoring that the extra $3.50/hr over min-wage they were paying didn't come close to covering the benefits; and also ignoring that entry level jobs like this paid about $12/hr in the 90s with benefits and that wages for workers have plummeted in 20 years.

Nope, we'll ignore all that so we can pat ourselves on the back because we figured out one of the points the article makes is silly. It's amazing how easy it is to derail talk of worker's rights with a few well placed talking points :(...

Re:Ug, I hate it when this happens

[dfenstrate]

Nope, we'll ignore all that so we can pat ourselves on the back because we figured out one of the points the article makes is silly. It's amazing how easy it is to derail talk of worker's rights with a few well placed talking points :(...

You've essentially already admitted that the 'journalist' made a sloppy, uneducated point about large campus 911 calls to score political points. What makes you think the rest of the article has any more substance or depth to it?

Re:Ug, I hate it when this happens

[tsotha]

When I worked warehouses in the mid-90s, pickers most certainly didn't make anything like $12/hr. They made the federal minimum. Something like $4.75. Even in constant dollars $12 is more than 50% higher than the wage pickers I dealt with earned.

Picking was always a low paid, crappy job. I don't know anything about Amazon, but if you worked for one of our customers and had two brain cells to rub together you wouldn't be picking for very long - if you showed up for work every day and could read they moved you into a position of more responsibility (and money). From what I can see, what makes these jobs worse than the ones in the '90s is the way they're using hundred-plus-year-old time management policies enforced by software.

But the pay isn't bad for that kind of work - it requires literally no skill whatsoever. You could have picked for 10 years and be no more valuable as an employee than the guy they hired yesterday.

Vital sign detectors?

[Undead Waffle]

Solution: vital sign / location detectors so the overlords can watch their little dots walking around a map of the warehouse. I also suggest making them all wear clown masks.

Re:Robots

[will_die]

Salaries have not been keeping up with inflation under Obama. Why do think minimum wage would of?

Your place sucks. Sorry 'bout that.

[dfenstrate]

Your mileage may vary by site, I can only speak about where I work.
  At my workplace, we send two other people with the EMT to communicate and help, and we call the ambulance at the drop of a hat. Further arrangements are made en route. Sometimes the site EMT calls again before the town ambulance arrives and asks for ALS as well.

By the time the ambulance arrives on site, I've got security ready to let them in and bring them straight were they need to be, I could have ALS on their way as well, and I've got the site EMT and two assistants at the patients side.

I'm not sure why you spend much time explaining anything to security. I 'explain' to them 'Bring the ambulance straight in to location Y.'

One of the EMT's assistants communicates any relevant medical information I need to communicate to the town dispatcher or the receiving hospital.

At my work place- if you happened to call 911 from a cell phone, you'd get the county dispatcher. If you called from a site phone that could dial offsite, you'd get the town dispatcher, and then if you didn't immediately call the control room afterwards, you would muck things up with security considerably. When you call the site emergency number (incidentally also 911), you get a room full of people who can coordinate the necessary response. You can go right back to rendering any first aid you're capable of.

Now, we average perhaps one or two calls a month, so we do have low volume.

Re:Another pro-union piece in disguise, like the

[dfenstrate]

Corporate emergency response is why we have the government do it. When you leave it in the hands of corner cutting corporations, it can get so bad that your bad reputation follows you 2000 years later.

You have zero experience in corporate emergency response. You're just shooting your mouth off to re-assure yourself why you hate corporations for being all corporation-y.

Re:I stopped using Amazon

[koan]

Maybe your the one of the turds that gave me (laugh) "troll" for the truth.
I mean seriously what sort of vindictive twats are left on /.

The bottom line is Amazon fronts for them, Amazon is responsible.

Interesting you went out of your way to defend a giant corporation which such a poor record of treatment for employees.
You don't happen to work for them do you. (-notice no question mark)

Coming soon, from The Huffington Post...

[93 Escort Wagon]

"St. Francis Children's Hospital employees instructed not to call 911!"

Re:Coming soon, from The Huffington Post...

[sonamchauhan]

Yes, an Amazon warehouse has the same medical care as a non-profit childrens hospital - right!

Wage slavery

[rsilvergun]

Can we please get away from this cult of work? Are the people who die in building collapses in Indonesia better off because they have a job? What about the 2 million folks who applied for 300 gov't jobs in India? If people don't need to work why should they? You and your "other people's money" are busy giving everything to the 1%ers while they laugh at you all the way to the bank.

Put another way: Is America the Greatest Country on Earth? If so, why can Germany and Sweden feed their poor and not us?

This is normal

[FrozenGeek]

Over the past 30 years (dang, that's a long time), I've worked at three multinationals. All three had this policy. It's unlikely that I happened upon three outliers, so I expect that this is the normal policy for large campuses. That being the case, if it was unreasonable, there would have been multiple large successful lawsuits and the lawyers for all the other big companies would have changed the policy. Large companies are risk-averse. The fact that this policy is still in place in many companies indicates that it is the right policy.

I get really tired for people dumping on large companies without warrant. When they deserve to be slammed, let's slam them, but dumping on them when it is not warranted is just as evil as anything they do.

Distracting Headline

[r-diddly]

The article isn't about whether and when to call 9-1-1 and doesn't seem to be trying to dig up a conspiracy about it. So, clickbait strikes again.

The article is more about the big picture, the common practice by employers of externalizing every cost they can get away with, which now and for the past 20-30 years includes having a workforce of humans. They will not take care of you. And there is a caste system. At Intel the badges are green, at Amazon, white, at Google red or yellow, at Microsoft, orange. Nobody is less surprised than I. But just because it's old news doesn't make it any less sleazy for them to make society (either as a whole or in the form of their individual employees... sorry, contractors) pay for their costs of doing business.

"For employers, the appeal of this system is obvious. It allows companies to meet demand while keeping their permanent workforce at a minimum, along with all the costs that go with it -- payroll taxes, benefits, workers' compensation costs and certain legal liabilities." That says it all.

Re:Distracting Headline

[HiThere]

That said (and it's hard to disagree with), that doesn't mean that calling 911 would result in the best and/or quickest medical treatment. In this particular case perhaps the policy is correct. I sort of depends on how they run their internal emergency handling. And if people are suspicious, I don't blame them, even if in this case they might be incorrect.

Perfectly reasonable.

[kenh]

If I worked in a facility with it's own EMTs and medical staff, why would I call 911 when there's a medical emergency? Call the medical experts closest to the accident/problem... Duh.

I realize many here will contort their thinking to blame Amazon for saying call the EMTs in the building, not the local fire department, convince themselves that calling 911 and waiting 10-15 minutes for help to arrive is somehow better than calling equally-well trained help on the next floor.

Re:Perfectly reasonable.

[dgatwood]

Most folks are saying, "Blame Amazon for taking nine minutes between when he was discovered and when someone actually called 911 to get an ambulance dispatched." If the only reason for such a policy is to ensure that the ambulance gets dispatched to the right place, to have security ready to meet them, and to get the internal emergency personnel there while you wait for the ambulance, then a "call security first" policy is fine. If the reason behind it is to save money on ambulance calls by not calling the ambulance unless you're absolutely certain that the person needs it, it isn't fine, and it costs lives. And a "call only our security people, and never call 911" policy is wrong, period.

Amazon apologist much?

[sethstorm]

The problem is that Amazon really does abuse the temporary labor classification (and their workforce) as much as is claimed by those "click bait" sites. They knew it would be an issue given how far they go to insulate themselves from accountability.

Even John "Watson's desk on fire" Patterson of NCR, the closest equivalent, had his limits. He broke morale like one would a horse, but knew to not have his employees (directly hired, unlike Amazon) dying from poor health.

911

[_KiTA_]

911 procedure is fairly standard. Our callcenter has ~5 entrances and they need to know which one to go do. Plus we have a squad of ~30 people trained in first aid working.

Still, it sounds damning out of context.

Re:Robots

[dasunt]

I've lived in Virginia. I now live in Washington, where the minimum wage is enormous. Funny, so are the prices. I can't afford anything in Washington. I wish I could move back to VA, where I had a better standard of living: my lower salary stretched much further. I had a gorgeous three bedroom apartment for 700 in Virginia; I have a shitty one bedroom apartment for 1000 here. Food was cheap in Virginia; I skip meals here in Washington to save money.

Are the two linked though? If you're in Washington DC, there's a limited amount of land, which should increase costs across the board.

Contrast with Washington State, which has a similar minimum wage. Yet if I look at rural Washington State Craigslist (Moses Lake, specifically - I presume that's rural enough but I'm not from the West Coast) - I find 2 & 3 bedrooms for under $700.

In my state, if I took what I paid for my small, modest house and went out into a rural area, I could get 4x the square footage for half the price! No minimum wage difference, but there is a difference in how populated each area is.

There is probably some link between minimum wage and higher prices - in both directions. A higher staff salary will bump up the prices slightly, but in an area where the COL is high, wages may be high enough already that there isn't a strong enough opposition to raising the minimum wage. The same holds true for areas with a low COL - wages may be low enough that businesses fight against raising the minimum wage.

Re:Robots

[dgatwood]

I think the GP is saying that we need a minimum wage law that permanently ties the minimum wage to the CPI, adjusted annually. If we had that, then salaries would have kept up with inflation (or at least would have been much closer to doing so), because the minimum wage would have kept up, and people working for more than minimum wage prior to the increase would begin to gripe that they're now getting minimum wage, so they would get a raise, and so on down the line. :-)

Re:Robots

[lorinc]

GBI doesn't work without demographic control. There are too few people to want both of them.

What part of Wage Slavery

[rsilvergun]

did you not understand? When everyone around you is making choices you have no control over (ending tariffs, eliminating collective bargaining rights, limiting access to voting machines for the poor, controlling your access to media, etc, etc) how the hell are you suppose to make a real choice?

Yes, he ought to. We're well on our way to building robots to replace him. If it hasn't happened now it will soon. 10, 20 years tops. And a good chunk of what's holding it back is the 1%ers are worried if they do it too fast then they won't be able to contain the social unrest.

Nice try misdirecting things. It doesn't change the fact that we're in a global race to the bottom with you and your ilk hanging onto the bull. Maybe you'll get lucky and be one of the last ones trampled to death. Good luck.

Re:What part of Wage Slavery

[msauve]

So, by avoiding the question it's now obvious that you don't practice what you preach, and are a flaming hypocrite.

Overworked and Underpaid is the real point of the

[Link33sc]

I hope I'm not the only one who took this away from the article: Jeff was trying to provide a living for his family the only way he knew how and he paid for it with his life. These workersâ"contract or notâ"are overworked and not compensated properly. From the article it says they walk about 12 miles a day. Every shift. I know the average healthy human body can do this. Periodically. Not every day for weeks on end. And no compensation can cover that workload. People shouldn't be taken advantage of like this. The whole emergency response is not the point of the article. I think that if working conditions had been better, Jeff wouldn't have needed emergency care at all.

"HuffPo piece"?

[rebelwarlock]

What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you two years old? Use real words or get the fuck out.

Thank you for the confirmation

[dfenstrate]

Oh look, another Bernie supporter who wants to change things he doesn't understand. Are you aware, in both medical response and in national politics, that change can be for the worse ? Does that ever cross the mind of a Sanders supporter? Do you ever have the humility to consider "Gee, I don't really know much about this, maybe I shouldn't be pushing for change."?

No, you have an emotional response to a perceived injustice, then you go and bore all your facebook friends with bland, ignorant moralizing and a cult-like worship of your new messiah.

Re:Robots

[Crowd Computing]

The bottom line is, no matter where the minimum wage lies, the day will come where we just don't have any work available for people like this guy - not because he's lazy, or doesn't want to work, but simply because he has no skills at tasks that a machine can't do better and cheaper. What do we do then? He still has to eat, as do his kids.How is he supposed to make a living, in a world where robots gather the raw materials, process them in factories, drive the delivery trucks, etc? At some point we'll probably have to start talking about switching to a Guaranteed Basic Income, or something similar, because there just won't be enough demand for unskilled/low skilled human labor anymore.

I agree with you on the Basic Income, but why are you writing this in the third person? You make it sound like people doing smart work will be immune from the wage deflation. But how do you define smart from dumb? For example, in the past you needed to be a Woz to build a computer. Now you just slap together parts made by machines or cheap labor. Designing new computers will still require skill, but I see a time coming when the design is simply uploaded to a machine that can automatically cut, etch or print the necessary components. The designers or those who control the design tools will become the new 1%.

Large Campus Emergencies, Quick-Response Teams, an

[hagalaz0271]

Before I moved out of state, I worked ambulance for a company that had a large corporate inventory redistribution center within its 911 coverage area, and I can tell you that the place was big enough that if we'd been summoned directly via 911 directly we would have encountered the following things: - A delay at the front gate, while security tries to figure out why the truck with big shiny lights is there. - A delay because the complex is so huge that you have to narrow down which building the patient is in, and where in that building they are. - A delay because you're dodging heavy equipment moving around in the warehouses ("they tried to kill me with a forklift huzzah!") because nobody issued an emergency shutdown order for that particular location. - A delay because now there are tractor/trailer rigs blocking your route out of the complex. Fortunately, the company that owned this monstrous campus had the good sense to reach out to the local EMS community and establish a response plan, which prevented all of the above delays from happening. They also had an on-site quick response team composed of licensed medical first responders who were also well-versed in hazards specific to the complex, such as the afore-mentioned forklifts. We even helped train these guys and held emergency response drills with them. So, yeah, when a company has a policy for its employees to dial the internal emergency number, most of the time there's no nefarious plot behind it. If you happen to collapse from cardiac arrest, you have about six minutes before irreversible brain damage begins to occur. If you're one of the fortunate unfortunates who happens to collapse in a witnessed cardiac arrest (which it doesn't sound like this guy was, unfortunately, since he was "found" lying on the floor), you get early access to CPR, defibrillation, meds, transport and advanced care. I can tell you that it would've taken about twice that just to figure out where the patient is in a complex that size that doesn't have a good working response plan. As for "qualified company staff", my license was old enough that it was pre-National Registry, so I can't speak to portability of staff from state to state, but generally, when you see an ad looking to hire EMTs or medical first responders for places like these, they still have to be licensed by the state they're going to be operating in, and they still have to work under the authority of a licensed physician serving as their medical director. It isn't just some "Peter Griffin, Certified CPR!" responding to your location with the crash kit. Otherwise you're opening your company to huge liability. Hope this helps.

Re:I stopped using Amazon

[hagalaz0271]

Nope, wasn't me. I definitely do NOT work for Amazon (or for any other megacorporation, for that matter). I was simply posting an instance where "what works for Joe Citizen in his private residence doesn't necessarily work for a giant fenced in megacomplex with multiple buildings". Also, I am not familiar with Amazon's SOP for medical emergencies in their warehouses.

And, if someone died because some corporate stuffed suit created a SOP that puts the bottom line ahead of employee health/safety in an emergency, then yes, the legal equivalent of an orbital nuclear strike is totally warranted.

(Also, hurrah, figured out how to insert breaks for new paragraphs! Long-time lurker, almost first-time poster here.)

No sir, you are they hypocrite

[rsilvergun]

because you again and again try to ignore the real issues by misdirecting the conversation. But the good people of /. are not fooled by the likes of you. They see through you. Which is why I was modded up where you were not. They see you for what you are. A troll.

This is how it works in hospitals

[Chewbacon]

In case of emergency, call (insert extension here) and specify the code. Hospitals don't call 911 even for visitors who collapse grabbing their chest. They are 911! My wife works for one of the largest employers in our town and they have a similar rule, AEDs everywhere, and a security force trained as first responders. In the presence of cardiovascular collapse, an arrhythmia that requires rapid defibrillation is really the only intervention that cannot wait. It's gotta be done ASAP, so AEDs are great in large companies. You can buy time with -good- CPR for just about everything else; training personnel to perform CPR is a good investment.

Re:You have bad genes

[Talderas]

The blind kid wasn't the victim's genetic offspring.