Why We Fight

Fostering and maintaining good working relationships with other public-safety agencies is vital to the service we provide. Can you imagine treating a vehicle trauma victim alongside the freeway if the police weren't willing to control traffic? How about taking that 400-pound patient down that five-story walkup without the help of a fire department rescue unit? Agencies must be able to work together in these situations. But when we work in close proximity with other agencies, conflicts can arise for a variety of reasons. Some can lead to horribly damaged relationships that take years to repair. If we step back and examine potential problem areas from the view of each provider, we might be able to avoid them.

What Causes Conflict?
While scholars have identified many complex reasons behind conflicts, the primary causes in public safety can be narrowed down to:

• Failures in communication;
• Personality conflicts;
• Lack of cooperation; and
• Misunderstandings of authority and job responsibilities.

Personality conflicts can arise for countless reasons, often unknown, and are often one of the most difficult kinds of conflict to work through. Sometimes there are people we just don't interact well with, and we're not sure why. Failures in communication and misunderstandings of authority and job responsibility are common sources of trouble, but these types of conflicts can often be overcome by reviewing the responsibilities we all have as public-safety providers and the specific responsibilities of each agency and individual.

Here are six common areas where conflict can arise between public-safety agencies:

• Shutting down roads following vehicle accidents and blocking them for long periods of time with fire trucks or ambulances;
• Conflicts over field DUI blood draws;
• Law enforcement response to unsafe scenes;
• Driving habits of volunteer members in private vehicles;
• Control of evidence during fire or EMS incidents;
• Conflicts between fire and EMS agencies.

Accident scenes
Accident scenes are frequently an area of friction between police and fire/EMS. Activities such as extrication and fire control can put medical providers in the path of passing vehicles. If patients' vehicles are in lanes, personnel can find themselves in the middle of busy freeways. In such situations, medical personnel frequently ask police to shut down traffic. Most officers have no problem doing this, and will do it as long as necessary. At times, however, police have either refused to shut down traffic or allowed it to move again while personnel were still in the danger zone, resulting in close calls.

Fire trucks and ambulances strategically placed to protect personnel have also caused conflicts with police, who may want them moved before personnel are ready. In one well-publicized event in 2003, a Hazelwood, MO, police officer arrested a fire captain at the scene of an accident when the captain refused to move an engine to open a lane of traffic.

There should be no excuse for a breakdown in communication that causes a police officer to allow stopped traffic to move again without notifying on-scene medical and fire personnel. No paramedic or EMT should have to worry about being run over while trying to backboard a patient on the double yellow line. With that said, many of us in EMS don't stop to think about the ramifications of stopping multilane freeway traffic or busy highways. Stopped traffic can quickly back up for miles, which can take hours to alleviate after we leave. Frustrated drivers quickly take to side streets and neighborhoods with playing children that aren't used to such traffic. Distracted drivers can cause additional accidents that further tax medical resources and stall thoroughfares. Road rage can cause drivers to do things that endanger everyone.