Secure Emergency Medical Rescue Services

[LordEntrails]

See also:

Enjoyed that move Also give another scenario, client didn't pay their organ bills but did pay for you. Organ is being repossessed, do you let them take the organ or fight them?

 

[Ulfgeir]

Never heard of DocWagon, but will look it up. Idea actually came from a benefit idea in FrontierSpace. And was thinking of running it using FS rules in a Star Frontiers campaign. But have also been wanting to run Cyberpunk too, so... shrug don't know where it will end up.

In Shadowrun they had this company called DocWagon, and they were armed EMT's who would extract their clients IF they had good enough contracts.
They also had a rival, that I think was called Crashcart. The latter only lasted for a while, but DocWagon has been in Shadowrun since 1e back in 1989.

Used to have a little card that was a reference to an in-game card, and I recall it had a line such as "If any part of the card-holder, no longer serves the card-holder, in the opinion of Docwagon personel, it becomes Docwagon property."

 

[Umbran]

You have been employed by a high priced medical evacuation service. They service high value customers who wear medical transponders. When a signal goes out that their life signs indicate jeopardy your are dispatched via a high speed air cars to secure the customer, render first aid, and place them in a freeze field if needed, and return them to the nearest registered hospital. And you are licensed to use lethal force to secure your customer's body!

So, for anyone familiar with Shadowrun... this is DocWagon. (Edit: oh, someone beat me to it)

Hope you all help me out here

So, I again think to Shadowrun, and say, "Corporate Espionage & Black Ops" which is a vague and broad classification for any time one corporation (or their plausibly deniable contractors) get into a firefight with another near the highly valuable human resource assets that have contracts.

Mind you, many of those "plausibly deniable contractors " may also have contracts. So, DocWagon may show up for people on both sides of a fight.

We can add "Desperate False Alarm" to the list, as some poor schmoe ends up in the middle of a situation (maybe of their own making) that they cannot control, and damage their transponder to get the EMTs to show up to use them as a heavily armed Uber.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

For ordinary ambo service, it takes 50,000 people to support a 24/7 service of one crew.

That figure seems quite inflated. How did you arrive at it?

Unless the social standards are far higher than today's (which would make the armed EMTs invalid), poor people disappearing or being murdered will not attract all that much police attention. For instance, on one weekend this summer Chicago had 114 people (nearly all poor) shot, to include two infants. It has not attracted more than routine interest.

There’s a difference between how police forces react to homicides due to relative mundane causes like gunshots, stabbing, BFT and more exotic causes of death like poisons or explosives. I would be surprised if a large number of bodies with significant mutilation- remember, we’re discussing harvesting body parts- were to be considered run of the mill. It might float below the radar for a while if most of the organs harvested are smaller- an eye here, an ear there, but when livers go missing?

 

[dragoner]

For SF, the sort of must read is the Med Ship series:

Med Ship (Med Service, #1-4)

Scattered through the galaxy are thousands of worlds co…

www.goodreads.com

 

[Jd Smith1]

That figure seems quite inflated. How did you arrive at it?

National Board of Emergency Services.

Or just Google it. Now, more affluent communities will normally have more police, fire, and ambo assets than average, same as better schools and roads.

There’s a difference between how police forces react to homicides due to relative mundane causes like gunshots, stabbing, BFT and more exotic causes of death like poisons or explosives. I would be surprised if a large number of bodies with significant mutilation- remember, we’re discussing harvesting body parts- were to be considered run of the mill. It might float below the radar for a while if most of the organs harvested are smaller- an eye here, an ear there, but when livers go missing?

I spent over thirty years as a police officer, the last eight in command of all investigative operations for my department. How police agencies respond to murders is dependant entirely upon the community attitude as a whole, the nature of the victim, and the circumstances.

For example, if an addict or known dealer catches a round in the areas of town where dope changes hands, priority and case budget will be low, interest routine. If a middle class person is killed in a nice residential area, the emphasis and resources will be high. And so forth. It has various titles, such as Social Value Index.

The USA has between 15k-24k murders (depending on whose standards you follow) per year. Less than 40% result in a conviction (in some areas, as low as 18%). So finding bodies is not as exciting as you think it might be.

In an era of organ harvesting as a criminal activity, finding bodies like that would be routine.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

National Board of Emergency Services.

Or just Google it. Now, more affluent communities will normally have more police, fire, and ambo assets than average, same as better schools and roads.

You are the one making a surprising claim. It would be nice of you to support it.

Still, let me rephrase: how is that number arrived at? Who are the 50k?

Clarifying further: it is clear that cities smaller than 50k have operational EMS services with multiple crews and vehicles, so it is not 50k per crew. Implying this is so would be deceptive. That would be a greater number of personnel than the entire combined police forces of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.

This means the 50k number you’re citing is referring to a network of people providing support to multiple crews at the same time. But it still seems high, given the size of the police stats I just mentioned...

So I’m asking what kind of personnel are included in that total. Mechanics? Dispatchers? IT? MDs?

In an era of organ harvesting as a criminal activity, finding bodies like that would be routine.

Leaving serial killers a convenient cover? Color me skeptical.

 

[MarkB]

In Shadowrun they had this company called DocWagon, and they were armed EMT's who would extract their clients IF they had good enough contracts.
They also had a rival, that I think was called Crashcart. The latter only lasted for a while, but DocWagon has been in Shadowrun since 1e back in 1989.

Used to have a little card that was a reference to an in-game card, and I recall it had a line such as "If any part of the card-holder, no longer serves the card-holder, in the opinion of Docwagon personel, it becomes Docwagon property."

I believe the Cyberpunk RPG also has its equivalent. For the forthcoming Cyberpunk 2077 videogame, the limited gameplay footage released so far includes one mission in which you can call them in to rescue one of their clients who you find kidnapped and injured in a criminals' hideout that you're raiding.

 

[Jd Smith1]

You are the one making a surprising claim. It would be nice of you to support it.

Still, let me rephrase: how is that number arrived at? Who are the 50k?

It's not surprising at all.

As a general rule, there will be one crewed ambo on duty for every 50,000 people living in the service area, on the average, at any given time. That is (depending on the agency) 2 or 3 personnel plus the bus on duty per 50,000 service population. So a city of one million could be expected to have twenty crewed ambos on call at any given time, normally. Assuming that everyone shows up for work and all the busses are in working order. Which would mean around 160-240 total EMTs, depending on the rotation, and crew size.

Clarifying further: it is clear that cities smaller than 50k have operational EMS services with multiple crews and vehicles, so it is not 50k per crew. Implying this is so would be deceptive. That would be a greater number of personnel than the entire combined police forces of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.

It is crews on duty, not total personnel. EMTs at home asleep do not render aid. How the crews are deployed are varied: some work 24 hours shifts like smokeaters, some 12s, some 10s, some 8s.

Leaving serial killers a convenient cover? Color me skeptical.

Serial killers are quite rare, and tend to have a signature. However, yes, that's why they tend to rack up a substantial body count before capture (if captured). Every local LE agency in the USA is autonomous. There is very limited sharing of data on a routine basis. Only in Hollywood do detectives get DNA results in less than several months, or full data including pictures off a fingerprint. Most departments do not have a dedicated forensics team, but rely on individual training and calling on State resources for major cases.

Most, if not all, states have an agency (in Texas, it is the Texas Rangers) which exists to provide trained investigators to assist (if requested) with high priority cases, such as murder, because most agencies will not have the experience base to properly investigate them.

For example, my agency experiences 3-5 murders a year, most of which are simple unplanned acts of assault which inadvertently resulted in death (a drunken dispute amongst migrants settled by brush hooks, for a common example). This would mean that our investigators would, on the average, act as a lead on a murder once every two years. The average tenure of an investigator was six years, which means just about the time they started to have sufficient experience to really manage a murder case, they were transferred or left law enforcement. Since investigations (as in many agencies) is a career dead-end, this means that the supervisors over investigations normally are not former investigators, but rather career patrol officers who have advanced in rank.

Hence the need for the Rangers.

And why today's serial killers tend to be mobile, and work the less populated jurisdictions. Gone are the days when the Green River Killer or the Atlanta child killer could work one area with impunity; these days, once identified, a task force will be formed with experienced outside help. But if the murders are scattered over numerous jurisdictions spread out over a sizeable area, a pattern may not be noticed for years.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Duplicate post.